Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey?
by LJ-Of-Asgard
Summary: Tony and Bruce discover an interesting feature of the Tesseract, and it turns out to be more of a handful than they first thought. After barely scraping past the first bout of alternate-reality travelling, a huge problem lands right on their doorstep. It's a race against time for the Avengers, and an inevitable fate lies in wait for Thor and Loki.
1. Chapter 1

**A.N: Writer's block on Saviour or Destroyer means writing through said writer's block and ending up with babbles like this. Things to expect: not much sense and uh.. yeah, just nonsense. X)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or their characters in any way shape or form (except maybe the giant poster on my wall but them not being real makes this invalid. /sad sigh)  
**

* * *

"Oof!" Clint was thrown into Natasha, who then stumbled over Bruce Banner, seeing as the man had been deposited, rather clumsily, face-down upon the floor. A golden floor, the scientist recalled as the gears of his mind immediately leapt into action.

Where the hell where they? Also, why wasn't he seeing things in a green tinge? From past experience, events like this usually made him, as Stark would fondly put it, 'hulk-out'. Instead, he felt oddly calm for someone who'd just been thrown from a vortex that was completely out of control. Gathering his senses, he put his arms under his torso and pushed himself up, clambering to his feet.

"Urgh, and today was my day off!" Tony whined from his position, which wasn't quite clear as he seemed to be tangled in a mass of limbs, currently.  
"Uh, little help?" he added as an afterthought.

Clint had picked himself up off the floor, apologizing to Natasha, before going over to help Bruce separate Tony from Steve and a very angry looking Loki.

"So, where are we?" Steve said after the group had finished checking for any injuries and making sure everyone was still intact, limbs and all.

"Welcome to Asgard." Thor spoke solemnly, standing at the head of the group. He surveyed the great Hall of Odin that was oddly empty for this time of day, Thor concluded. The sun was high in the sky, alerting the god that it was midday.

"It's just transported us." Loki spoke, although with an air of uncertainty as he walked up besides Thor with tentative, cautious steps.

* * *

_A mere 5 minutes ago, they had been stood in Tony and Bruce's lab, discussing what they should do with the tesseract which had found its way back to S.H.I.E.L.D once more, after a petty Chitauri invasion of Asgard. _

_It was not entirely successful, they had lost the majority of their already-weakened army, and although they had managed to escape with the tesseract, they made the poor choice of opening a portal to a random destination, not having the time to think properly with a horde of Asgardian warriors on their tails. That random destination turned out to be Midgard, and they were promptly served a glorious ass-kicking by the Avengers, and a very irritated god of mischief who was after revenge._

_Tony had wanted to keep the energy source for a little while to run some tests. He was kind of the only name in clean energy right now, and wanted to bump up his repertoire of clean energy sources. He couldn't have the tesseract itself, but he could get some helpful readings. Or at least try to. _

_It was in one of these attempts that he discovered the tesseract wasn't just an energy source. Alright, he already knew – and first-hand at that – that the tesseract was capable of ripping open portals through space, which was fair enough, but after a rather messy experiment involving Bruce throwing a camera through the mini-portal that Tony had managed to open in a solid glass dome-room that was there for the purpose of ridiculously dangerous and usually entirely pointless experiments for their own amusement._

_They had recorded evidence that this little box of unlimited energy was also a portal through time._

_"Of course! It's a wormhole!" Tony exclaimed, rather excitedly, to a dubious looking Bruce._  
_"It essentially connects two points in space, but also time-" Tony quickly shut off the portal before anything could happen, "-how the hell did I forget that? JARVIS, how you doin' with those readings?"_

_At that point, Steve and Thor appeared in the doorway. Thor was clutching Mjolnir and had it raised as if he was about to attack, and Steve had his shield at the ready._  
_"Huh?" the Captain frowned in confusion, looking at the two scientists who stood there, totally unharmed, and with no enemy in sight._  
_"We saw the light of the tesseract, and then a portal! We thought an enemy had broken through once again." Thor stood up straight, bringing Mjolnir back to his side, but the confusion was evident on his face also._

_"Ah, you guys just missed something fantastic!" Bruce grinned; his doubt had been thrown out by the clear, solid video evidence that was playing on a screen in front of him._

_Natasha appeared shortly with Clint and Loki in tow, wondering what the commotion was._  
_"Hey guys. What's going o-" Clint began to speak, then he saw everyone crowded around the tesseract. Raising an eyebrow and glancing at Natasha, who returned the incredulous look, he ventured over to have a look._

_Loki remained where he was; he didn't trust the tesseract any longer, not after the Chitauri had stripped him to the core and implanted their own barbaric nature in his mind, so that he was no more than a tool to retrieve the tesseract. It had taken months of recovery for him to get to where he was now, sane and in control of his own mind._

_A babble of conversation quickly filled the momentary silence of the room, distracting the occupants from the tesseract which had started, well, misbehaving. Surges of power went unnoticed by Tony and Bruce, and JARVIS failed to cut across the loud hum of conversation. _

_It wasn't until the lights began to flicker and a low rumble rattled through the chests of the Avengers, alerting them to the now misbehaving tesseract. Panic set in, except for Bruce who, as always, regarded the situation calmly in order to avoid, or at least reduce the chances of hulking out. However, they'd left it too late._

_A blinding flash of blue light was thrown out, and it swallowed the occupants of the room in a swirling cloud of energy, wrapping itself around each body firmly and pulling them into its power and into the vortex that had opened up. Screams and various noises of shock and occasionally anger sliced through the howling wind, which grew louder as the vortex grew bigger, the power mounting and ripping right through the heart of the S.H.I.E.L.D base. Suddenly, the vortex came to a shuddering stop. The room was silent for a second, before an incredibly loud boom sounded, rattling the steel foundations of the building itself and sending quite a lot of agents flying with the force of it._

_The sheer mass of this curious vortex, combined with the added pressure of its seven unhappy occupants simply caused it to collapse in on itself, taking its captives along with it._

* * *

"Where's the tesseract?" Clint alerted the group to the missing energy source. Without it, they had no easy way of returning unless someone in the S.H.I.E.L.D base could a) operate and open a tesseract portal and b) actually noticed they were gone. The latter option was pretty likely, it's not every day that a bunch of superheroes and their once-nemesis-but-now-making-amends acquaintance suddenly disappeared into thin air, but S.H.I.E.L.D agents weren't exactly experts on tesseract handling.

In short, they were stranded. On the bright side, they were in Asgard. Thor and Loki could sort them out, right?

"Loki, slow down!" the voice of a child reached the ears of the Avengers, who turned to look at Loki. He was still standing where he was, ablbeit rigid with what seemed to be shock, so the Avengers returned their attention to the doors of the great hall with wide eyes and bated breath.

The sound of childlike laughter and voices grew louder, and louder, until two small figures barreled through the golden doors, stopping abruptly when they saw the odd looking group of people stood in front of them.

Loki immediately recognized himself and Thor as their younger selves. His chest constricted and his stomach knotted, the uncomfort worked its way through Loki, binding him in place. Thor simply blinked twice, he was used to magic, but time-travelling was a different matter altogether.

"Oh my God." Tony muttered, hysteria creeping into his voice, "Is that _you?_"


	2. Chapter 2

**A.N: Wow! So many email notifications in my inbox when I woke up this morning - made my day before it even started! X) Well, I'm so glad that so many of you guys like this story. It was meant to be a one-shot, because I simply don't have the time to write at the moment, and not with Saviour or Destroyer to concentrate on too, but I have a free week next week so I will do my best! This story will be a complete drabble series, I think, no beta. **

**If anyone did want to continue on from the first chapter themselves - go ahead! I'd love to see what you could do with this idea.**

**mikachu - yes, I do like Doctor Who X) glad to see you spotted the reference!  
**

**Anyway, I leave you with this little chapter. It was more of a little drabble that became long enough to be a chapter on its own, so I thought, eh, why the hell not?  
**

* * *

Loki said nothing. Instead, he remained rooted to the spot; the sight of his younger self was eerily disconcerting.

The boy looked strikingly innocent, with bright green eyes, wide with curiosity, and short black hair, cropped neatly by his ears. He wore simple clothing in colours of black and green, with the exception of his gold chest piece. The green sleeves of his tunic were rolled up to his elbows, and leather wristbands and straps adorned the majority of his right forearm, bearing what looked like simple designs, but were actually words to various incantations.

The young Loki looked clean and simple, but it was the innocence that struck the hearts of the Avengers more than anything.

"Who are you?" the young boy spoke, stepping forward with caution in his every move.

"Loki.." the young Thor piped up, sounding alarmed.

He wore simple clothing like Loki, but they were in colours of red, blue and grey instead, and he had no jewellery or bracelets adorning his wrists like his brother. In comparison, he looked scruffy; his blonde hair closely resembled a bird's nest, sitting atop his face that was lined with cuts and scrapes from his various adventures. They couldn't really be more different.

_Well, this is a tricky one. _Loki thought to himself, calculating his various options. He could blatantly lie, but he had the niggling feeling that his younger self would call it out immediately. He could trick them, but that would cause a ruckus and that was something they did not need right now. Looking over his shoulder at the Avengers with panicked eyes, he considered his chances of using magic to conceal them. He could manage two people, three including himself but that was pushing it.

There was no way he could successfully conceal seven people unless they all moved completely in sync, and with Thor and Tony in the group, there was no chance of that happening.

Moreover, why hadn't his younger counterpart figured out who they were yet? Surely, he was smart enough. And Thor's Mjolnir was a major giveaway. Current-Loki narrowed his eyes, analyzing how old the younger versions of he and Thor looked. Definitely old enough to have been into the weapons vault with Odin on that day, so therefore definitely old enough to know the legends surrounding Asgard and the Nine Realms, and even more so the stories of the relics that Odin had gathered.

But the younger Thor was sharper than Loki thought.

"Mjolnir!" the blonde boy cried out suddenly, pointing an accusing finger at the current-Thor, who glanced at the hammer, then at Loki, then back at his younger self in the space of a few seconds.

"Damn." Loki muttered drily, as the two young boys started running towards the golden doors that they'd just entered through. With a deft flick of his wrists, he slammed the doors shut before the two boys reached it, and his silvertongue was let loose.

"I ask that you remain calm, and preferably silent." Loki spoke sharply, the piercing voice echoing in the great hall. He narrowed his eyes in concentration as he studied both boys, who stood with their backs against the doors, cowering in fear.

"You have magic." the young Loki spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm in contrast to his currently terrified stance.

"You have to understand, I _know_ you will understand," Loki said to his younger counterpart, ignoring his last words. Frowning in thought and trying to piece together a comprehensible sentence for the boy to understand the situation, it was a moment before he spoke again.

"I am you, Loki, but clearly, I'm from the, er, future." Loki put out a hand, index finger raised as a gesture to prevent the younger boy from moving, which he was clearly planning on doing.

"You can't tell anyone. Understand? Don't call Odin, don't call Heimdall, and don't call the guards. We'll be on our way, and gone before you realize." Loki's voice faltered towards the end, he was trying to think of a way out as well as trying to convince himself that they would be no harm.

"You lie, trickster." the young Loki couldn't help but smirk. This was an adventure waiting to be had. Loki recoiled, stepping back.

"Your voice faltered. I know how I lie." the young Loki stepped forward, and the young Thor let out a noise of protest, but otherwise kept back.

"You know not how to escape." Loki's younger self continued, stepping forward each time the older Loki took a step back.

Loki felt a wave of panic course through him. This was dangerous, uncharted territory. Messing with time in the first place was incredibly dangerous, and this would almost certainly not end well for anyone involved. And here he was, having a conversation with his younger self. It took all of Loki's resolve to not simply turn and run, as he had always done before.

The heavy silence was disrupted when Tony spluttered suddenly, unable to keep himself together anymore. Hysteria had taken hold of him completely and forced him into uncontrollable laughter in the next few moments at the absolutely ridiculous situation they'd landed themselves into. He couldn't stop, and was doubled over, an arm on his leg to stop him from collapsing completely.

Bruce looked at his fellow scientist in dismay. This really was not the time. Literally.

"Everything's a joke to him." Steve muttered, his brow furrowing in annoyance at the billionaire.

"Stop!" Natasha called, incredibly irritated at the whole situation. She'd been comfortable with a small espresso and the latest Vogue at her disposal, but now she'd been flung into another time completely and stuck with what was currently a band of bumbling idiots, as was the image being portrayed by the hysterical Tony. She moved to the front of the group and stood just in front of the older Loki, folding her arms with a determination that sparked a glint of humour in the young Loki's eyes.

"We haven't got time for your childish games, Loki. Just let us go." the redhead continued, her hand resting on the taser that was tucked in her belt. Would it be incredibly wrong of her to tase the kid? She had a rising urge to do so, but had the feeling the present Loki would not take kindly to that. At all.

"What childish game? I'm offering you help." the young Loki grinned, folding his arms similarly.

_They won't trust you_, the older Loki thought. If he was being honest for once, his patience was wearing incredibly thin, and they did not have any more time to waste. It would be incredibly harsh of him to knock the boy out, but if that was the only way-

"You should know I'm not lying." the boy frowned at his older counterpart, sending his train of thought crashing. Loki studied the boy for a moment, slowly nodding to agree.

"I know you're not lying." he murmured, his tone was blank. "But they won't trust you."

"_You_will." the young Loki countered, confidence rising.

"It makes no difference. I am you, you are me." Loki frowned, shaking his head, and turning to the group.

"Well Thor will trust me, won't he?" he heard the innocent voice chime out behind him, and felt uncomfortable once again, but this time, it worked its way through his body and bound him tight, his chest struggling to rise and fall against these new constrictions.

Looking at Thor, he could tell that the god was struggling to come to terms with the fact that they had been thrown back into their past, let alone make sense of what their younger counterparts were saying.

"Thor will trust _you_, maybe." Loki spoke quietly, the piercing green of his own eyes never leaving Thor, who had visibly cringed as Loki spoke the words.

The young Thor stepped up and grabbed his brother by the shoulder, wrenching his sibling around to face him.

"No, Loki. This is stupid, and reckless!" he warned, pointing an accusing finger at the group, "They're intruders in the Hall of Odin!"

"And you are a fool to let an adventure slip by!" the young Loki retaliated, smirking. "Come on, brother!"

Thor thought for a moment, glancing at his older self with vague interest.

"What do you plan?" the boy spoke quietly, returning his gaze to his brother, who grinned at him triumphantly.

"First," the raven-haired boy turned back to the group, his eyes gleaming with anticipation, "Do you accept our help?"


	3. Chapter 3

**A.N: This story seems to be the more popular one, so I guess I'll work on this one for the time being. And I'm terrible at updating regularly, sorry x infinity! X) I am genuinely writing this off the top of my head, it has no plan or structure or anything and is primarily being used as GCSE practise, lol, so bear that in mind if you do stick with this chaotic series of drabbles and find yourself wondering if this author has lost the plot completely.  
**

**Super super short chapter. Again. And this will probably continue. I'm terrible. X)  
**

* * *

An internal panic rose through Loki, who felt icy to the core from uncertainty. He was still facing the Avengers, and had his back to his younger self, partly because he simply no longer wanted to look upon his past. That much was evident to Thor, who was deeply unsettled by this occurrence in the first place, and now he had a very rattled Loki to deal with.

"Do we?" Loki murmured quietly, though he sounded more like he was merely thinking aloud rather than answering the boy.

Tony had regained some sense of reality, although the feeling of amusement still lingered, he resigned himself to keeping quiet for once. This was not his past and he really did not want to mess with it. _Loki's already messed up enough_, the billionaire mused to himself as he watched the scene unfold.

Everything about this was dangerous, Bruce concluded, if they interfered here, then they had no way of knowing of what could happen to Loki and Thor. It wasn't worth the risk.

"Loki, we should think for a moment. If you help us in your past… There's no way of knowing what could happen to all of us. Especially you and Thor. We need to find a way out-"

"Bruce, they've already twigged who they are." Steve spoke, interrupting the scientist rather uncharacteristically and glancing between the present Thor and Loki.

"Even so, messing with it further will cause damage." Bruce could not put together the puzzle that was the way out of this situation, the helpless look that momentarily flickered across his features was enough to send the other Avengers into a further state of panic. Bruce was the only one who'd worked hands-on with the Tesseract, and therefore the only one who had a rough idea of how it worked; if he couldn't get them out then they failed to see who else could.

The young Loki watched the conversation with a growing sense of disappointment. This would have been an interesting adventure, to say the least.

"Wait! The Tesseract?" the young Thor interrupted loudly, looking at the group with curious eyes. Bruce looked at the boy, and gave a simple nod.

"We have it in the weapons vault… But…" the blonde haired boy began to think, the sense of adventure finally catching up with him.

"We have no way of getting them there without disobeying Father," the young Loki spoke what Thor was thinking, "but there is a way, Thor."

"Of course, you _would_ know a way, Loki."

"I prefer to learn things rather than spend my time beating a helpless sparring victim to Valhalla."

"But Valhalla's a respectable fate for a brave warrior! Besides, I'd love to see your knowledge come in useful one day-"

"And what seems to be happening _now_, brother?" the momentary banter was ended with the young Loki's triumphant line, accompanied with the smirk that the Avengers had come to know and occasionally, be suspicious of. It usually meant mischief.

The present Loki mirrored the smirk, glancing sideways at Thor, who looked affronted.

Steve smiled, amused. He'd come across Thor and Loki having similar banter a number of times in the Avengers tower, and he couldn't help the niggling warmth that reached his chest at this.

"We can't accept your offer, Loki-" Natasha began to speak, but the fleeting look of disappointment on the young boy's face made her stop in her tracks.

"You really _want _to help us?" the redhead raised an eyebrow, not entirely believing him. The boy looked at her, nodding.

"Adventure." he shrugged simply.

"Just adventure? Is Asgard not interesting enough for you?" Natasha sounded amused, much to Tony's surprise.

She was not one for humour, and he'd learnt the hard way when he tastefully decorated her car on a slow day of S.H.I.E.L.D board meetings following Loki's placement in the Avengers team. Natasha had, in return, paid his Malibu mansion a visit and promptly trashed the place, and then left him a text with the threat of decapitation if he pulled another stunt like that again. She didn't specify what body part.

The current Thor felt a growing sense of unease as the younger Loki spoke. The boy was incredibly out of character for, well, _Loki_. He was too lenient, too nice, and actually wanting to help? Well, that was a first. And it seemed the current Loki had caught on too, after prolonged silence which Thor assumed was just him thinking.

"How old are you?" Loki frowned, looking between his younger self and Thor's younger self with an air of suspicion.

"I'm nine, Thor's seven," the raven-haired boy frowned, "why?"

Nothing was louder than the moment of silence that followed.

Loki felt a gnawing anger, willing him to lash out and destroy this reality that had been laid out in front of him. It was almost like the Tesseract had decided to mock him, tease him with the power he would hold as the first-born son.

Thor's expression was blank, and his eyes were glazed over. This was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

"You never mentioned the possibility of an alternate reality!" Loki turned on Bruce, eyes wild with confusion. The meek scientist balked, stuttering and stopping as he tried to come up with an answer.

"I didn't know!" Bruce replied, his hands up in submission. His heart rate was elevating quickly, and they did not need the Other Guy to make an appearance right now.

"But… But you- you were researching and you found it travels through time!" Loki retorted, his calm and collected stance unraveling with every wild accusation that bubbled to the surface of his mind.

"And that's all we found, Loki." Tony stepped in; the tension was rolling off Bruce in waves, prompting him to at least attempt to diffuse the situation.

"Brother, calm down. It is just a matter of us finding the Tesseract in the weapons vault and then we will be free of this madness." Thor finally broke out of his limbo. Loki hissed and recoiled at Thor's voice, uncertainty gathering in the pit of his stomach.

"It's not that simple, Thor. We have to get to the vault first, and I have no way of using my magic unless I have some sort of 'jump-start' as the mortals would say-" Loki began to ramble uncharacteristically, spouting out various complications before rounding on Bruce and Tony once more, causing Clint and Natasha to join in.

"Stop!" Steve yelled over the noise, sighing exasperatedly and shooting them all a stern glare like a parent would do with a small child.

"This is nobody's fault, the Tesseract… _misbehaved_, and here we are. No point crying about it-" the captain shot a pointed look at Loki, who narrowed his eyes angrily, but otherwise fell silent, "-we just need to trust these guys to get us to this weapons vault you keep talking about." he finished, referring to Thor and Loki's younger counterparts.

The subdued Loki turned to the younger Loki and Thor, clutching the handles of his double swords he had hidden under his cloak. The trickster had just opened his mouth to speak, when the familiar thudding of Gungir resounded throughout the hall.

"Father!" the young Thor looked to the huge doors, eyes wide. Footsteps grew louder and voices grew quieter as they neared the doors.

"Uh, Loki?" Tony murmured uncertainly, noticing the god had just frozen to the spot and wasn't responding to anything, _kind of like Dum-E on a bad day_, he thought. At least Thor had this under control, right?

Tony glanced towards him, expecting him to at least be moving and responding to whatever the hell was outside that door. Instead, Thor was also fixed to the spot, mouth agape and eyes wide with what seemed to be terror.

Great, now they had two malfunctioning gods with their apparently impending doom approaching on the other side of the door. Duly note that said malfunctioning gods were the only ones who knew where this weapons vault was in this place, and the kid versions of Thor and Loki seemed to have forgotten about them as they scrambled towards the door

"Loki?" Tony tried again, to no avail. "Nat, can you… er, tase him or something?" the panic grew in the billionaire's voice as he turned to the rest of the group for help.

"That would just knock him out, Stark." Natasha replied curtly, although there was an edge of uncertainty to her voice. Steve made to move towards the two gods and snap them out of it somehow, when the doors were flung open. A mighty looking Odin stood there, Gungir in one hand. His grey gaze settled upon the strangers crowded in the middle of the hall as he overlooked his two sons running towards him.

"Lo-!" Tony was about to make a last-ditch attempt to recall the god's attention, when a sudden bolt of green slammed the Avengers in the chest, sending them flying. The room warped violently as a bright green glow set in from the edges of their frayed vision and swallowed them all in a blinding flash of light.

"Who dares invade the hall of Odin?" Odin slammed Gungir's tip to the ground, sending a ripple of white energy towards the group, but they were gone before it could do any damage.

"Who did you see?" Odin turned to his sons, his voice low with harboured anger.

"We saw no-one, father. We were simply playing here. Perhaps you are seeing things?" Loki retorted. His light-hearted tone made a small smile appear on Odin's face, despite it all, and his anger quickly receded.

"Yes, I must be growing old." Odin stood upright and chuckled, reaching out to ruffle their hair, receiving complaints from Loki who had spent a great deal of time on his hair this morn, according to Frigga.

"Are the gardens not sufficient for your adventures, my sons? These halls are extensive, but also dear. I can't be replacing everything you boys happen to break." Odin began to walk out of the hall, as Loki and Thor followed him.

"We will go out to the gardens then, father." Thor grinned, and Loki nodded in agreement, before they both began to run down the golden corridor, intent on finding their older selves once more. The curiosity was simply too great for them to ignore.

"Brother, you felt where they went?" Thor called after Odin was out of earshot.

"Be careful, Heimdall will be watching!" Loki said quietly, glancing to Thor with a nod, he did indeed know where they had gone. His magic had reacted to his older counterpart's, resulting in a momentary link and showing him their destination. There was no mistaking the cold, icy steppes of Jotunheim.

* * *

Loki felt himself hit the cold ground at speed; he was thrown forwards by the momentum but eventually came to a stop. With a shuddering breath, he realized that his limbs felt like dead weights holding him down. He opened his eyes to the sudden glare of the light, which elicited a pained gasp from the trickster. Blinking, his eyes slowly adjusted, and he could make out figures nearby, they were pulling themselves up off the floor and moving slowly.

Of course, teleporting a group of people didn't come without its flaws, like the inevitability of an incredibly bumpy landing.

Loki came to his senses a little bit more, but he still couldn't move, no matter how much strain he put on his arms or legs. Slowly regaining his sense of hearing, he realized that he felt strangely empty. _Hollow_. His fingertips no longer sparked with energy, nor did his very being feel even remotely powerful like it did before. Loki had been almost completely drained of his magic in that teleport alone; there were just too many people. He mulled and ground these thoughts in his head, the sickening feeling sunk in - he was incredibly weak now. Vulnerable. Loki felt increasingly tired as an inky blackness slowly crept up on him. Unable to swim against this new tide, he simply let himself drown without another thought.

Thor shook his head to rid himself of the un-coordination that hit him suddenly when he tried to sit upright. He instinctively reached for Mjolnir, and scanned his surroundings skeptically.

"Hey, Pointbreak." Tony's voice broke the silence along with various mutterings from the others, which alerted Thor to his friends' whereabouts.

"Friend Stark, are you hurt? Any of you?" Thor rose to his feet, feeling no more than a few bruises from the harsh landing.  
"Uh, yeah. That wasn't exactly an easy ride, even less so for the poor souls who've never hitched a lift on the goddamn Loki Express." Tony mumbled, also pulling himself to his aching feet. He heard Thor chuckle, and scowled angrily to the god, not appreciating the lack of sympathy.

"Speaking of whom, where is your brother?" Bruce staggered up to call through the darkness; he wasn't hurt so much as incredibly disorientated from Loki's teleporting which had left the Avengers scattered in various places. Thor frowned.  
"Is he not with you?" the god began to walk over, struggling to see a clear path in the dim light. Various negatives sounded, causing Thor to stop and look around again.  
"Loki?" he called, moving away from the group to go and search.  
"Wait, Thor! We need to stick together, we have no idea where we are." Steve's voice disrupted the eerie silence that followed when Loki did not reply.  
"I must find him-" Thor began, but was cut off by a low rumble. Boulders and rocks began to fall, causing uproar from the scattered Avengers. The rumbling and falling of boulders ceased, but little rocks continued to skitter down walls of stone every so often.

"I think we're in a cave." Clint said, meekly. A murmur of agreement reached him as he stumbled over rocks to find the nearest voice, which happened to be Bruce.  
"Alright?" the archer asked, and Bruce nodded in response. The duo began to shift rocks and clear a path out, until Clint tripped over something and landed with a loud complaint.  
"What was that?" Natasha called out, "Clint?"  
"Clint just fell over, nothing to worry abo-" Bruce began to reply when the fallen archer cut him off.  
"Loki!"  
"Where?" Thor wheeled around as he heard Clint's yell, marching towards the sound.  
"Is he _dead_?" Clint yelped as he skittered away, eyes wide as he stared at the crumpled heap on the ground. Loki's pale face was easily distinguishable in the low light of this cave, as well as the dull glint of his armour. But Clint was just totally freaked out that Loki was lying totally still, and if the guy _was_ breathing, he couldn't hear it, or see it.  
"What?" Thor's louder voice echoed in the cave, a few more rocks fell and caused Tony to jump out of the way.  
"Nice, Clint. Real smooth." Tony muttered, sarcasm dripping off his words.  
"I'm _serious_!" Clint yelled back, hysteria creeping in. "He's not moving, or breathing or.. _anything_!"

Thor was now ploughing through rocks and boulders, throwing them carelessly as he desperately tried to find his brother.

"Clint, calm down. You're not helping." Bruce's voice took on a rough edge, alerting Clint to the scientist's growing unease. He moved to let Bruce past to look at Loki.  
"Vital signs aren't clear.." Bruce murmured to himself, before a loud crack and thunderous roar alerted him to Thor's presence.

"Brother! Wake!" Thor was immediately kneeling besides Loki's lifeless form, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach. He could not lose Loki now, they'd come too far for this. Past Loki's initial punishment upon their return to Asgard – he was bound to silence, no form of communication could occur between him and any other being until Odin saw fit to release him. Past the Jotunn war on Asgard that ravaged the Realm Eternal to its core as thousands of Asgardian soldiers poured out of the gates, day on day and night on night to wage war with a race that was _made_ for war. Past Loki's descent to Earth, where Odin applied the same tactic as he once did for Thor – learn humility by living with humanity. Past Loki's fighting alongside the Avengers that was wholly unintentional, yet had become a great success and after so many years, he'd simply been accepted as Loki, because when you stripped away the layers of bravado and power, he was simply a boy with a streak of mischief.

A feeble cough disrupted Thor from his trance. Loki stirred, and slowly felt movement return to his limbs.

Bruce was still besides Loki, watching. He'd given up hope as soon as he couldn't get any clear vitals, Loki was beyond the point of saving, or so he'd thought.

"Brother?" Thor reached out and placed a strong hand on a bony shoulder, turning Loki onto his back carefully.  
"_Oww._." Loki whined. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps. Slowly, he felt his core grow warm and vibrant once more as his magic began to replenish. Unfortunately, this was a visible process – wisps of white and emerald began to filter in through his fingers – and caused Tony to comment.

"Guess that jump-start worked, huh?"

* * *

**A.N: Broke my 2000 words-in-one-chapter target! Yay! **

**Thank you all so much for your reviews, they keep me writing! ^.^ (even when I'm being bad and not updating for ages oops)**


	5. Chapter 5

Loki came around fully in a matter of minutes, his magic coursing through his veins and spiralling around him in a cool, green glow. The room was illuminated with the new light source, and Tony couldn't help but stare as the trickster sat against a wall of the cave, shrouded underneath the green and gold wisps of energy.

"You know, it is considered rude to stare, Anthony." Loki murmured, his lips barely moving. If anything, he looked like he was sleeping – his eyes were shut and his breaths were deep and even. The whole sleeping façade caused Tony to do a double-take, narrowing his eyes at Loki. A tell-tale smirk slowly appeared on Loki's gaunt face, causing the billionaire to scoff and sit back again, rubbing his hands against the biting cold wind that whipped around the occupants of the cave, chilling their bones to the core.

"Unbelievable. On the brink of death and you call me _rude_?"

"Insufferable mortal."

"Glad to see your relationship has improved." Clint shot in drily, earning a scathing glare from Tony.

"Brother? Are you well again?" Thor spoke, his warm breath becoming vapour in the cold air. He moved closer to Loki, brow creased in concern at the younger god's slow responses. Loki waved a hand vaguely, as if batting Thor away. The older god sat back, the concerned look still held fast.

"Thor, you look kind of like a kicked puppy right now." Tony commented, huffing. Thor frowned, this time in confusion, but he did not pursue the reference further.

Loki opened his eyes to glance around the cave, but where a leafy green iris should have been, there was a crimson ring surrounding black. Clint yelped and skittered back once again, chest tightening even more on top of the biting cold that was wreaking its havoc on his breathing already. Steve looked over, about to make a comment about the number of times he'd done that in this cave so far, but his words were forgotten as he looked to Loki. The dark haired god looked to the archer in alarm, he wasn't almost dead this time, so what was-

"Loki, your eyes!" Thor muttered in alarm, interrupting and stepping into Loki's line of sight, deliberately shielding Loki from the others. Loki's face paled and his lips stretched into a thin line.

"What?" he snarled, suddenly reaching up to rub his eyes frantically, as if that would rid of the crimson that lay behind his eyelids. He felt Thor's warm hand on his wrist, and only vaguely heard his pleas for him to stop, his mind growing hazier as he panicked further. Thor eventually ripped his brother's hands away, and fixed him with a pointed stare.

"Calm yourself, again! You are weak, and it is cold here, I believe you- you are.. – you are trying to change." Thor murmured lowly, and his heart lurched when he saw Loki's crestfallen expression, but then the younger god began to struggle against Thor's iron grip again, mercilessly this time. Loki bit and kicked, lashing out with verbal insults that completely bypassed Thor.

"Please, do not struggle!" Thor abandoned previous methods of low tones and hushed conversation as his panic rose with every violent movement Loki made.

"Let. Me. Go." Loki hissed in a voice that was so unlike his own, it was feral and rough, a far cry from his usual silky tones. The familiar bristle of ice snaked up his arms. He'd momentarily forgotten that Thor was still holding onto him, but suddenly, the god threw Loki's arms free with a loud bellow of pain and reeled backwards, staring down at his own hands in shock. They were a dark blue, and it looked much like Volstagg's injury when a frost giant had grabbed his arm, burning it with ice. Loki's eyes were wide with horror as he watched, now kneeling on all fours to support his own weight. A few stray strands of hair were frozen to his face in a thin layer of ice, the raised ridges of the darker blue markings stood out against the blood red of his eyes and the stark white of his bared teeth.

Bruce immediately went to Thor's aid, trying to work out how to at least try and stop the pain that it seemed to be causing.

Tony had shuffled around to see Loki, unable to help his own curiosity. It was in the nature of a scientist, he had to observe and ultimately find things out, but this shivering…. _creature_ delivered a nasty shock.  
Well, he didn't really know what to expect, after all, the only thing he saw was Thor suddenly looking like he was about to jump on Loki and then Loki made some noises and then Thor started screaming.

_Out of context_, Tony thought_, let's not go there. Also might not be wise to call Loki a creature_.

Returning to normal thought, he took in Loki's new appearance. It was hauntingly…_ væn_, as he heard Thor say before. Of course, he meant that in a wholly platonic manner. Those darker blue markings were intriguing too, and he could deal with the whole being blue thing. It was just those eyes that set him on edge.

"No-" Loki made to reach for Thor, guilt wracking through him, but he recoiled before he could do any more damage.

"I'm sorry, I-I… I don't-" Loki had never felt like such a monster before, not even in the weapons vault on Asgard with Odin. He felt so wrong in this skin, so unstable and disgustingly animalistic. It wasn't him, it wasn't Loki the Silvertongue or the god of mischief, or anything _acceptable. _It was the son of Laufey, it was a Jotunn. And the Jotunn had harmed Thor.

"Brother, no, that was a fault of my own. I failed to realize what would happen." Thor seemed to read Loki's mind, and tried to offer some comfort to the shivering trickster.

"Your magic is weak, Loki, it was not of your own doing." Thor spoke again, firmer this time. Loki managed a weak nod in response.

After the initial shock had died down, the only sound was the howling wind tearing through the cracks in the surrounding rock and occasional murmurs from Bruce who was overly curious about Thor's wounds. Each of them were getting increasingly aggravated with nothing to do. This bout of time and alternate-reality travelling was taking its toll, unsurprisingly.

"This is ridiculous. How are we meant to get back by sitting here doing nothing? Does anyone even know where 'here' is, exactly?" Steve spoke everyone's thoughts, looking around at the group. Loki had returned to being slumped against the cave wall, staring desolately ahead, a concerned Thor sat next to him. Bruce sat on the other side of Thor, knees hunched to his chest, shivering slightly.

"We are in Jotunheimr. " Loki stood up suddenly; the fleeting look of disgust that crossed his face did not go amiss to the group. Despite his earlier reluctance, he could not sit there and watch these people freeze to their deaths. Loki may be capable of mischief that bordered on insanity, but contrary to popular belief he still had his honour and he owed these Avengers a huge debt after they had taken him in.

"We cannot stay any longer, you will freeze to death in here." they heard him say in a quiet tone that seemed to be laden with something close to concern.

One by one, the remaining Avengers clambered to their feet and began to follow in silence. The silence, Loki knew, was a result of the icy fear that each and every one of them currently felt coursing through their veins, some more than others. Fear of what? He did not know exactly.

They might fear_ him_, his Jotunn form was nothing less than imposing, enough to strike up a discordant sense of uncertainty, verging on fear, but not so great that it would reduce them to silence.

They might fear the icy, barren wasteland of Jotunheim. Admittedly less imposing than the monsters that resided here, it was still enough to set even the greatest of warriors on edge. The icy steppes and jagged peaks of whitewashed mountain ranges were stark against the perpetually darkened sky, with little more than stars to light the way. It was a formidable, violent and merciless landscape, but it was so incredibly_ lonely_. Loneliness does not mix or belong within the human… soul, as they called it. It drove mortals mad. Loki felt it all around in his time on Midgard. From lonesome vagrants that inhabited the streets to high-powered CEOs who surrounded themselves with their riches. He should know Loneliness, it was all he felt when he was drifting through that endless void. Even Hope is lost to Loneliness, and Hope is a powerful presence in the soul. It was true what they said, Loneliness destroys you eventually._ Definitely worthy of fear_, he concluded, but not silence if they so wished to avoid this Loneliness.

So what was left? Death? Death was a certain possibility here. They had no food, no safe haven to return to, and at this point in time, no way out. Even if Loki could guide them to the Bifrost site, would Heimdall answer? Would they all make it? Turning to the group although still walking, he cast a calculating gaze over each of them, determining their chances.

Banner, with his medical know-how and extreme resilience would certainly stand a fighting chance. He did not show signs of struggling thus far, asides from the occasional shiver. If all else failed, Loki was sure that the green monster would surface to protect him. Though the monster was still set as an enemy in Loki's mind, it did not matter here; this was a case of surviving, not making acquaintances. So Banner was safe.

Thor. Loki knew that Thor would survive this; the cold winters did not seem to have such a drastic affect on him as they did upon other Asgardians. Loki concluded this was due to sheer size and will as opposed to being built for this environment, which he was certainly not. Thor had Mjolnir too, as a weapon to destroy or a tool to build; it was immense in its power and would certainly help Thor to survive. Good. He would not – _could not _– lose his brother here.

Stark was no more than a mortal in this world, without his suit. Not that he thought his suit would be of any assistance; surely the ice would simply cease its power? But as a mortal, Stark was in danger – Jotunns saw them as easy targets, and in the case of an ambush, they'd be the first to go. And while Loki hated to admit it, the Jotunns were far superior in strength and skill in battle. The ice and snow alone was already placing Tony, Clint and Natasha at an extreme risk of hypothermia, with Steve having a built up resistance through the serum so he could hold it off for longer. Loki could do little to prevent the onset of hypothermia, other than keep them moving as fast as possible across the snowy tundra.

Pausing, Loki realized he still wore his cape as it fluttered lightly against his back, the wind forcing it into his form as he walked. Although it was not made for warmth, it was useless on his Jotunn form. Reaching behind him, he tore the emerald material off his armour and gave it to Natasha without a word, only a lingering gaze that conveyed all she needed to know, before he returned to the front of the group. Thor observed with a warm smile breaking onto his frozen face. Reaching behind him, he made to pull of his own cape, when a familiar blue hand held his cape down. He glanced up at Loki with a questioning gaze.

"You need yours, brother. Even you are not infallible to this cold-"

"They need it more than me. I am able to survive here, Loki. Do you not trust me?" Thor replied, smiling once again at his brother. Loki's lips quirked slightly, as if he was about to smile, but he then turned away with a nod. Thor pulled the scarlet off the silver armour, and passed it to Clint and Tony, rejoining Loki once again.

They continued to plough on, stopping to rescue a fallen Clint or Natasha, or sometimes Tony. It was obvious that they were tiring – they all were. But they really had no choice.

_**oOOOo**_

"Come on, Thor!" Loki looked over his shoulder to see Thor clinging on to his dun horse for dear life, head burrowed in its mane. Thor looked up, scowling at his brother.

"I told you, Loki! I can't ride horses like you!" the boy cried, ducking his head again and clutching onto the reins even tighter. Loki laughed loudly, turning to face the right way again, feeling the wind in his hair and filling his lungs with fresh excitement. They were on the Bifrost, racing towards Heimdall's observatory as fast as the horses could carry them.

Reaching their destination, they dismounted – Thor, a little disorientated – and approached Heimdall.

"What brings you here today, my princes?" the guardian spoke, his voice low and smooth as ever, carrying a tone of amusement, which caused Loki to raise an eyebrow.

"Yes, I did observe your little discussion about those invaders." Heimdall nodded once, golden eyes fixed on Loki's green. Thor huffed, folding his arms stubbornly.

"I'll rephrase my original question," the man chuckled lowly, "What exactly have you come here to request?"

"A passage to Jotunheim!" Loki said, pleadingly. Heimdall's smooth exterior was disrupted by the laugh that erupted from him at this statement.

"You have always been one for mischief, Loki, but I cannot allow that. Your father forbids it, do you not know?"

"Yes, but my father forbids many things-"

"And you like to ignore his rules on many occasions." Heimdall smiled warmly at the boys, he was often amused by their adventures, or what he saw of them.

"Y.. no!" Thor frowned, looking up at Heimdall, who simply chuckled at the boy.

"I cannot allow you to Jotunheim. Why need you venture there?" the guardian rested slightly on the Bifrost key, relaxing his stance.

"You know those invaders you saw?" Loki sat upon one of the steps leading up to the plinth on which the Bifrost was engaged from. Heimdall murmured an affirmative, prompting Loki to continue. The gatekeeper cast a cautious eye upon Thor, who'd taken to wandering around the observatory instead, allowing his brother to handle this.

"Well, they're us. They're me and Thor, but from the future!" Loki grinned excitedly, "But.. they want to get home, and I said I'd help them. They need the Tesseract."

"Then why do you linger here? You must explain to Odin." Heimdall rested a gentle hand upon Loki's shoulder in reassurance. If anyone knew the implications of space-time travel, it was Heimdall, and so he collected his scattered thoughts and tried to persuade the boy to tell Odin – the Allfather had the power and the knowledge to approach this with, not he.

"But he won't believe me." Loki muttered dejectedly, resting his head on a clenched fist, waiting for Heimdall's response.

"He will believe you as I believe you, Loki, for I see them. "

* * *

**A.N: Yay, another chapter done! X) Although I think I made some dumb vocab choices - please point out any you find or other mistakes, I'm always looking to improve.**

**On another note: I'm so happy to see you guys reviewing, favouriting and adding to story alerts - it's great waking up to a busy email inbox! I'm thinking of a few substories to this, which I may write as separate fics in the future - would any of you be interested? Any suggestions/ideas you'd like to put forward? I'm growing quite fond of WWTW, so I hope to continue it! ^.^**

**Loki-Ryuu: Oops, sorry! :P I couldn't bring myself to do that, I'm too much of a Loki fan!**

**Miravisu - *cue dun dun derrr music* Who indeed? O.O**

**ClimbingUpTheWalls - I hope this chapter answers your question.. :P**


	6. Chapter 6

Evening had settled upon Asgard, bringing with it the peace and quiet of the impending night. Nights on Asgard were serene, simple in their beauty and something that Loki grew to look forward to after a day of exploring Asgard's wilderness with Thor in tow.

Loki loved his little brother dearly, but there were days when he preferred his own company and his own thoughts. Thor was young and unruly, caring only for the stories of battle that Asgard's warriors brought back after their journeys and the glory that came with it. It annoyed Loki and only reminded him of his own detachment from Asgard's dominant warrior culture that he despised.

Why was his brother so simple and so content with becoming a mighty warrior being the only purpose in life? Then again, Loki supposed, Thor was younger than him. He had a lot to learn. He had not seen the horrors of war. Not yet. And when he did, Loki was sure that would change his ways.

Loki's love of night came about from his knowledge that these incessantly bothersome thoughts were put to rest. Loki would be tucked into the warmth of his bedcovers and pillows by Frigga and bade a good night's sleep. He would listen for the receding footsteps of the guards and then quickly undo his mother's work of firmly tucked in sheets and plumped pillows to venture to his window and open it, returning to his bed to pull a warm wolf's pelt around him. From there, Loki would climb out of the window and up onto a flat section of the palace roof that was surrounded with a low, golden wall, topped with ominous statues at the two outwards corners that levitated and stood like guardians to Loki's room, something the boy found enthralling. Loki remained there for a while at night, the warmth of the wolf's pelt comforted him, and the sights that sprung before his eager eyes were unmatched, Loki thought, and in time, he learnt that these sights were the work of magic.

Wisps of the darkest green and the palest blue to the deepest red and all the colours anyone could imagine would rise up and work their way through the town – the buildings and the markets – through to the citadel walls and then into the villages, seeking out dangers and nullifying them. It cast out a steady glow, ebbing and flowing over Asgard like a perpetual beacon. Its aim was to protect, and protect it did. Loki always felt safe with magic.

It was from these nights that Loki realized magic was his calling, it worked with him and showed him things that the bloodiest battles could not, and Loki craved this knowledge. He wanted to reach out and take everything into his vast mind, exploring until everything was found and slotted neatly into place, filed, stored and locked away for use. That wealth of knowledge, and in turn, magic, would serve Loki greater than a blade ever could.

And it was one of these nights that Loki had found himself at a loss of what to say to his father about these so called invaders. This was unusual for him, he had a word for every occasion and the Silvertongue to match – his powers of persuasion, even at his tender age, were difficult to ignore. So why were words failing him now?

Pulling the wolf's pelt tighter around his shivering form, Loki closed his eyes and sought out a clear path of thought. Father was in Alfheim, called there late this evening after a disturbance of some description in Jotunheim had reached the ears of the Elf King. For how long his father would be gone, Loki knew not. Puffing out a held breath that turned into a misty vapour in the cool air, he opened his eyes and decided to use this time to devise a way of telling Father. And he'd make Thor help.

**oO000Oo**

"We need to move faster." Loki warned the struggling Avengers, who replied with groans and muttered protests, too weak to shout. The unforgiving terrain of Jotunheim was taking its toll, ravaging bare skin with sub-zero temperatures and blizzards that made visibility decrease drastically; they were now stumbling blindly through Jotunheim. Literally.

"Brother, we cannot expect… They are deteriorating; I fear our Lady Natasha will not be able to resist much more of these wretched conditions!" Thor spoke over the howling winds, causing Loki to pause and look back, eyes narrowed against the constant barrage of snowflakes and the strands of hair that attacked his eyes due to the wind. He could make out the blurry figures of Clint and Tony, who were shrouded in the red and green of the capes, and in between them, the smaller figure of Natasha, slightly crouched under the weight of exhaustion and the battering wind combined. Bruce and Steve walked together, to keep each other warm for the most part, but the reality of the situation ate away at the two men, and they were glad of the other's company, but now Bruce was looking incredibly haggard, leaning heavily upon a shivering Steve.

The sudden chatter of Thor's teeth caught Loki's attention, and he turned to his brother, frowning in concern.

The mortals needed warmth and shelter. Basic human needs that Loki had carelessly forgotten about and he chastised himself for it as he began to summon the tendrils of the remaining Asgardian magic in his core, closing his eyes in concentration. Energy began to ebb and flow with a dull, unfamiliar ache that Loki knew to be the result of this scarcely used Jotun magic, but he would have to bear it. This was a reckless combination of Jotun and Asgardian magic that Loki had no idea what the outcome would be, but dire situations called for extreme measures, he thought, as the powers began to merge and course through his veins. He sent it straight to his fingertips, and the first licks of a flame shot out, before engulfing the entirety of Loki's hands in white hot flames.

It burned.

By Valahalla, it _burned!_

Jotuns were made of cold and ice, fire was their greatest enemy, and he was blatantly using it on himself. Why? What insanity pursued him to the point where he was hurting himself for mere _mortals_?

Everything was screaming at him to stop this madness and return to ice, but Loki had to ignore it – the power was gaining too much energy for him to control.

Bringing his hands in; he tried to concentrate the power, his focused mind fighting against the searing pain that threatened to break this flow of magic, and then thrust them outwards, sending the flames rocketing through the ice and snow, clearing a path with magic that seemingly burnt with the energy of a thousand suns. It ravaged the ice that now ran in little streams of clear water over a dusty terrain. It charred buried rocks; the force of it tore them up and threw them aside carelessly. It caused some peaks of faraway mountains to crumble in the sudden temperature change, and the rumble of avalanches rattled through Loki and the Avengers.

The pain suddenly broke its hastily enforced barriers in Loki's mind, eliciting a blood-curdling scream from the god who was struggling against the energy itself as fire began to lick at his arms and spread upwards, highlighting the strain in his stance and the veins that stood out along his neck. Loki's face was pulled taught with the pain, and he could taste blood in the back of his throat, along with bile that threatened to spill out. The god gasped, crashing to his knees as he was about to surrender and let the energy simply consume him.

But then, Loki noticed that the pain slowly dulled in a smooth, rolling motion. Almost like the icy cold that spread over him whenever he took on his Jotun form. His mind stopped racing with various scenarios in which he was dying, slowly and painfully, and cleared enough to allow Loki to think. What damage had he done, exactly?

The fire was still there, he could see it when he opened his eyes a crack, not wanting to face the entire situation just yet, but then he noticed the fleshy colour of his arms amidst the bright flames, and his eyes opened wide.

Loki then glanced up to assess the situation, more so the people around him.

Thor was fighting against Steve and Clint's quickly depleting restraint, eyes wide with terror and mouth agape as though he'd been yelling or simply having an argument with someone. Loki then realized that deliberately setting himself on fire was probably not one of the things that went down well with Thor.

Loki's gaze then drifted across to Tony, who he found was holding onto Natasha protectively with Bruce standing in front of them as a shield, and there was no mistaking the fear in their eyes. Loki let his stance relax, and he held his hands out in front of him as a peaceful gesture, before realizing they were still aflame, and then remembering the actual purpose of this entire situation. Warmth. Shelter. He got the warmth. Shelter was just not available right now, Loki concluded as he cast a wary glance across the rest of the frozen tundra, bar the newly-created, dusty path that already had a light dusting of snow from the ongoing blizzard.

When the Avengers did not relax or stop staring at him like he'd grown another head (that was always a possibility, Loki thought), he began to think something else was wrong, and so turned to look behind him to investigate, when a grating voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Fire God."

Loki stood up shakily, lit hands struggling to grip onto a nearby rock for support, melting the snow and ice rapidly. He turned fully, only to be greeted with the sight of a Jotun army, shrouded by the blizzard. Rows upon rows of Frost Giants armed with ice weapons and the desire to kill whatever had disrupted their home. Right. Not good. Jotun army. 3 mortals, a superhuman, a Hulk and 2 gods. This wasn't going to work. Not on the Jotnar.

"Fire Giant." the voice spoke again, and Loki sourced it to a lone figure standing slightly in front of the mass of giants, upon an icy rock.

"Son of Laufey and Farbauti," a rumbling chuckle sounded, "You little _runt_. We thought you dead."

Loki growled, a low, feral snarl that was clearly a warning to the figure.

"I am far too old to be that runt, here." Loki countered, voicing his thoughts aloud as he assumed an automatic defensive stance. His own, younger self that he had encountered hours ago was nine, the boy had stated. At least, the Asgardian equivalent – it was more… 200 years, the god estimated. He himself was thousands of years old by now, he'd lost track long ago, but it was certainly far too old for this Jotun to see him for who he really was. And _'fire giant'_? That was just his magic, surely. _It's just an alternate reality_, Loki began to repeat the mantra in his head, _just an alternate reality._

"Yes, Loki Laufeyson, a prince of ice and a god of fire. You're a walking contradiction. How curious." The Jotun chuckled, a grating sound that scratched on every last nerve of the Avengers, not to mention the subject himself.

"And do not doubt that we've heard of your little trip through time, trickster. Alas, you have realized that things are not what they seem, here." the figure cocked his head slightly, as though he was amused.

"Let's see.. beloved crown prince of Asgard, praised for his knowledge, awed for his power in the dark arts and no-one's ever seen him lift a sword. Normally, a prince is introduced to his weaponry by now," the figure made to move off the rock, but then thought against it when he noticed the suddenly violent flames at Loki's hands, "and that's a little odd, is it not? The Allfather abolishing his warrior culture completely for a son that isn't even his _own_."

"It's called love, and I'd say that you know nothing of it!" Thor growled, breaking out of Steve and Clint's hold to step forward, clutching Mjolnir tightly as little rolls of lightning snapped off his broad hands.

"Reveal yourself!" Thor called, angrily. The sudden roll of thunder overhead was enough to coax the figure off his rock and a few steps towards them. At least, it was enough to see him in full, not obscured by the violent blizzard. He stood at least 7 feet tall, with broad, square shoulders and clearly defined muscles that were occasionally obscured by leather straps holding his wolf's pelt secure upon his dark blue skin. The crimson red of his eyes seemed so much brighter than the Jotuns that surrounded him, much like Loki's had been.

"My name is Helblindi, you blundering fool. And nay, your beloved father looks past the boy in favour of the wolf. The monster," Helblindi growled lowly, his hands curling around a forming ice-spear, "To form an _alliance_!"

"How ironic, since that's the one thing he _hides_ from." Helblindi started to walk forwards, until he was face-to-face (or rather, face-to-chest) with Loki, who craned his neck up to fix his stare upon the giant. A macabre grin pulled Helblindi's thin lips taught and tightened the corners of his eyes, as if he struggled with this simple gesture. The giant then opened his mouth to speak once again, eyes narrowing in blatant anger as he did.

"Hello, _brother_."

* * *

**A.N: Aaand... that's it for a little bit! I'm being packed away on holiday with little access to a laptop, but never fear! I shall have my trusty notebook and a broken pencil that I will sharpen in a neanderthal fashion with rocks and uh... write, so then I'll have stuff to post when I get back. Yay!**

**As always, every review, favourite and follow is greatly appreciated! I would love to see some constructive crit. here, this was a difficult chapter to get right (is it even right? XD) and so I'd really appreciate it.  
**

**I should probably change the story genre too, it's not humour anymore. Or at least, it won't be for a little while. Unless you include random sarcasm as humour.  
**

**Thanks and adios! - LJ  
**


	7. Chapter 7

Helblindi took a tentative step back from Loki when the trickster sunk his flaming limbs into the snow as a means of extinguishing them, for no other way occurred to him at this present moment in time. Maybe he'd ask Stark to install a fire extinguisher in future versions of the suit, that would undoubtedly come in handy if he ever decided to set himself on fire again.

"What?" Loki hissed, craning his head up once more to fix the giant with a steely glare that seemed to penetrate deep into his mind, frantically trying to search out information. Helblindi gave a low, rumbling chuckle, the grating sound merging with the sudden crashing of ice shards from a nearby column that threatened to give way under the weight of the ice sheet it held.

"You heard me." Helblindi murmured, ordering his army to stand at ease with a deft flick of his wrist. Crimson eyes swept over Loki searchingly, looking for any sign of attack from the god. The Jotun duly noted that Loki was tensed, coiled like a snake about to pounce.

In one swift movement, Helblindi withdrew to his right as Loki suddenly leaped forward in a fit of rage, roaring and lashing out with violent blows that connected with Helblindi's icy shoulder. The god thrashed wildly, mercilessly, the sudden eruption of emotion stripping him down to the pure primal instincts of fight or flight. The latter seemed so much more appealing in that moment.  
Fist after fist collided with the icy planes of Helblindi's chest, shoulders and abdomen, each blow causing more harm to Loki than to the momentarily stunned Jotun. Had the Asgardian gone mad? Maybe insanity _had_ finally caught up with Loki. Helblindi frowned in thought. A stab of guilt pricked at his perpetually cold heart, breaking through the ice sheet and forcing him to take action. Jotnar were not sadists, although they had fallen into mankind's myths and legends as creatures who relished pain, war and suffering, Helblindi certainly did not enjoy any of the aforementioned things.

Gently, the Jotun caught one of Loki's flailing arms, forcing the trickster to stop.

A pained sob rolled through Loki's chest and came out as a strangled noise, caught somewhere between a humourless laugh and a desperate cry for help. Loki sank to his knees again, pulling his arms free and wrapping them around his chest tightly. A black hole had been opened. It was draining him of all emotion and thought, and he was trying to prevent himself from spiralling down any further. He had finally reached the crux of his _forced redemption_, as he had liked to call it. Had. Loki couldn't quite bring himself to call it that anymore, not after the Avengers had become a permanent fixture in his incredibly turbulent life.

Controlling his feelings for too long was just pushing every fathomable limit, both physically and mentally. It was constantly trying and testing these boundaries, like a caged serpent trying to escape, trying to find the weakest spots. Every so often, it would simply recede and reach into the dark recesses of his mind where forgotten memories lay, and it would bring them out again – the serpent's poison.

Of course, these memories were so skewed and distorted after being dragged out and replayed time and time again like an old tape, that they no longer haunted Loki to the extent they had done before. It was now, Loki realised, that they were trying to disappear altogether. Outshone by the lighter, happier memories Loki had gathered from his time with the Avengers, the darker pools that he'd retained for so long were drying up.

Loki was violently jerked back to the real world as he sucked in an icy breath, the cold stretching through his lungs and pulling his frayed senses together. It seemed to clash with something, Loki felt. With his newly bound senses, he began to assess how much damage he'd done.  
The biting cold at his knees and lower legs was normal, no longer in his Jotun form and kneeling in the snow, it was a normal occurrence.  
The light stinging of his hands alerted Loki to the minor cuts and ice-burns he'd acquired after that recent outburst on Helblindi, and he ducked his head in shame. How could he lose himself so badly like that? Like a child throwing a pathetic tantrum.  
The movement of his neck alerted him to something warm around his neck and shoulders; it was heavy, but at the same time, comforting. It reminded Loki of his childhood, or at least, the good parts. It was familiar.  
Looking up and to his right, he saw the red cloth and grey chainmail that made up part of Thor's armour. He followed the mail up to Thor's face, eyes creased against the blizzard but the azure pools had the dull glint of concern that Loki had grown far too accustomed to.  
Loki caught the movement of Thor's cheekbones in his peripheral vision, which alerted Loki to the fact that Thor was speaking. No clear sound passed through his ears, it was muffled and distorted and upon reaching his ears it seemed to simply blur into one continuous drone. Like those infuriating wasps that were rife in the Asgardian summer.  
Blinking, Loki shook his head and tried to clear his hearing, but he could not get rid of that droning. He tried everything, spells, enchantments, even smashing his head into a rock – which did not help Thor's concern at all – and nothing worked.

Helblindi and his army were nowhere to be seen, Loki realised as he blinked away the vestiges of a sudden darkness that washed over him after the initial collision of his head and a nearby rock, which he noted, with a grimace, was now covered in light smattering of his own blood.  
"Helblindi. Where's Helblindi?" Loki asked frantically, unable to hear his own voice over the droning. Where had the Jotun gone? Had they just left them here? Why had he tried to stop Loki? So many questions shot around Loki's mind like cars on a cable – a constant loop, only disrupted when he saw Helblindi's huge figure lying in the snow, a fair distance away. Loki could make out the hammer, Mjolnir, sitting atop the giant's chest.

"Bruce, I think you'd better-" Tony's eyes were wide and fearful, his stance was guarded and poised to run if the need arose. His comment was cut off by Thor's loud exclamation as Loki plucked himself up from a nearby rock.  
"Bruce, can't you do something!" Natasha's composure broke completely under the weight of exhaustion and sheer confusion at Loki's actions.  
"I-I'm a doctor, not a psychologist!" Bruce stammered, but he moved towards Loki without thinking, his arms out in front of him, ready to grab onto the god if he didn't stop.

"Why can't- I can't hear!" Loki whirled around to face Thor, the warm sensation of blood trickling down the side of his face was so confusing against the icy wind that was currently ripping through Jotunheim. Everything was confusing to the trickster in this moment, his defences were shattering left, right and centre, and it left him exposed in the harshness of Jotunheim and the Jotnar. Too close to home. Far too close.

Loki's outcry prompted Thor to reach out and grab onto his brother's arms to hold him still. He opened his mouth to speak, and then the reality of Loki's words sunk in. Frowning in confusion, he fixed Loki with a questioning stare. Loki made a gesture of some sort, momentarily pointing towards his ears then shaking his head. Thor considered the situation for a moment, and raised a hand to Bruce, who was attempting to stumble across rocks and snow to get to Loki.  
"I will bring him over, my friend; we do not need any more injuries." Thor said to Bruce, who nodded and turned back, thankful that he didn't have to concern himself with the jagged landforms that were far too difficult to move through. Although, getting pricked by a rock was the least of his worries right now, Bruce concluded as he returned to Steve.

Thor made to move and gently tugged on Loki's arms to signify what he wanted him to do. It worked, as Loki followed obediently.

"Loki, what the hell hap-" Tony began to speak, always the first to point out the elephant in the room, but he was interrupted again, this time by Thor.

"He cannot hear you."

Tony assumed that the confused expression he currently wore was enough to prompt Thor into explaining it, but he could not take his eyes off Loki's shivering figure, eyes downcast and narrowed into slits, steely with anger, or perhaps determination? Tony could never tell with Loki, he was a walking myriad of emotions that seemed to co-exist too closely. Happiness was always tinged with a melancholy gaze, or sadness was slightly marred with the sharp tongue of envy. He didn't make sense, and now it was just even worse. Tony could not make head nor tail of it.

"I do not know what has happened, but I cannot talk to him, tell him to explain.." Thor frowned at Loki who stood to his side. Loki looked up and registered the confused looks from each of the Avengers, and casting aside his own scattered emotions for a moment, he began to summon his hybrid magic, gently nudging Thor away.

Raising a hand, Loki let the letters form from his fingertips in a shimmering green with golden hues, casting an intriguing light display over the crispness of the snow against the darkness of the sky.

_My magic is deteriorating. It is tied to my 'biological systems', if you will. _

Loki's eyes watched as the letters crumbled away after a few long seconds, giving the group enough time to read and process the information.

_It attacks my being – my systems will fail and my senses will simply wear out, it is already starting-_

Loki paused, frowning again. He glanced to Thor, the gold and green illuminating his broad face and giving him the sense of a childlike fascination. Loki's gaze did not waver as he drew up the next sentence.

_In short, if my magic fails, I die._

**ooOOoo**

Loki stood outside the doors to the throne room with Thor. He adjusted the gold band that ran around his head, with a centrepiece that consisted of a diamond-like shape that was engraved with Asgardian runes. It was itchy and uncomfortable, and put Loki off the idea of wearing a crown entirely as he furiously tried to flatten his unruly mess of black hair to make the band a little more comfortable. Thor had a similar band, but in silver, and the centrepiece was not a diamond but a series of intricate carvings that ran the length of his forehead, before returning to a plain silver band that disappeared under Thor's mop of blonde hair. Unlike Loki, he rather adored his band.

The grand doors were pulled open by two guards, and the sunlight flooded over them both, encasing them in warm, golden glow.

Loki made the first move, adjusting his leather wrist-strap as he walked in with Thor following close behind, his shorter legs moving faster to catch up with Loki's longer strides. Loki's gaze ran the length of the hall, and settled upon the steps leading up to the throne where his father currently sat, Gungir in one broad hand, and the other resting upon an arm of the golden throne.

Hearing the light footsteps of Thor and Loki approaching, a broad smile worked its way onto his worn features. A carefully trained smile, something perfected after years of hiding secrets or emotions he did not wish to show.

Odin stood to greet his sons, moving swiftly down the steps.

"And to what to I owe this meeting?" the Allfather spoke, reaching out to place a gentle hand upon Loki's thin shoulder.

"It's about those invaders." Loki spoke bluntly, green eyes boring into Odin's blue, unwavering. Odin sucked in a breath and turned away, momentarily glancing at Thor who just ducked his head.

"Go on." Odin prompted Loki, unsure of the boy's intentions.

"I said that I'd help them."

"No, Loki. "

"Father, please! You did not see them," Loki moved towards Odin, "Thor can say the same as I – they were us, they were our older selves!"

"Your brother speaks the truth?" Odin turned on Thor, casting a searching gaze over the boy.

"Yes, father." Thor nodded once, looking up to meet Odin's stare.

Odin nodded contemplatively, looking between his two sons as he thought. The events that transpired in Alfheim through the previous night were nothing if not incredibly tedious; they caused disputes and rows that should not be associated with the Rulers of the Nine in any way, for they were more common amongst townfolk and common men. However, the Nine did agree upon one thing – a powerful force was at work here. It went past the realms of magic to the forces of time itself, that much they could see.

"It is as we thought, the Elf King and I. They have meddled in time." Odin began to walk down the length of the golden hall, "We will ride to Jotunheim this night, lest time be further disrupted and your futures lay in their hands." the Allfather's voice took on a steely determination as he looked over his shoulder at his two sons, who were swiftly after him, young faces fresh with excitement.

* * *

**A.N: Well, turns out I could bring my laptop AND get internet access! Some days I can't, but be assured that those are the days I'm filling up pages in my notebook with ideas and sketches for this story XD**

**I'd just like to clarify that Helblindi is actually Loki's brother in the myths, for anyone who's confused!**

**And on a completely unrelated note - was The Hollow Crown fantastic or was The Hollow Crown fantastic? **


	8. Chapter 8

"You, er, wanna sit down?" Bruce broke the silence that followed Loki's last statement. Who his question was aimed at, he did not know, but seeing Thor and Tony both slump to the ground on their behinds was enough of an answer, he supposed.

Tony rubbed his forehead as if that would alleviate all the rapidly surfacing thoughts and possible scenarios. Wasn't it simple enough? Just don't let Loki's magic run out. Kind of like a battery. Like his arc reactor. _But what if it broke?_ _Or maybe he's just not working properly? Or- _Tony groaned internally, he really needed a double Scotch to quell the incessant babbling going on in his mind. Or several to knock him out. That could work pretty well too.

Thor was raging, spouting out strings of sentences that used too much of the Asgardian dialect for anyone else to understand, apart from the odd '_Loki'_ or '_won't let that happen' _which seemed to only be thrown in there when other words failed him.

"Why didn't he just speak what he.." Tony began to ask, trailing off into vague hand gestures in a vague imitation of Loki's earlier use of magic as a voice, as he struggled to find a word, "wrote?"

Bruce sighed wearily, shrugging with one shoulder as an answer, as though using both was too much effort for him right now.

"Thor, I think we should release Helblindi now." Steve murmured from his position atop a rock that overlooked Helblindi's army, who remained at ease, despite their leader being pinned to the icy ground by Mjolnir. The soldier noted, with a vague sense of admiration, or something similar, that Helblindi did not even try to move the hammer. The giant simply lay there, hands folded over his abdomen as though lying to rest, and waited.

From Thor's tales of the Jotnar, Helblindi seemed so unlike what his kind had been described to be by the god. He was not merciless and bound in mindless violence; instead, he'd shown patience and made no move to attack Loki once he'd seen how thin the ice that Loki stood upon was. Admittedly, his initial greeting had done enough to wind Loki up in the first place, but Steve simply put that down to the fact that he was still a _Jotun_, and though he did not seem entirely akin to Thor's description, there were still some characteristics that remained. A sharp tongue, a dominantly aggressive nature and a keen eye for trouble, traits that stemmed from their own warrior culture. Inevitable traits.

Thor, disrupted from his ranting by Steve's quiet suggestion, glanced over at Loki as if for confirmation. Of course, he knew he would get neither confirmation nor denial; it was merely an old habit. Shaking his head as if to rid his mind of these thoughts, the thunderer stood up and began to trudge his way through ice and snow to where Mjolnir had thrown Heblindi. Reaching the giant, Thor let out a breath he'd been holding, the release of air immediately forming a misty vapour in the icy atmosphere that belonged to Jotunheim. He did not reach for Mjolnir as he had intended to, instead, his hands remained clenched into fists at his sides. Thor could feel the heavy stares of the amassed army that lurked behind the sheet of snowfall that had grown so violent, he could no longer see more than a few paces in front of him.

"Thor Odinson." Helblindi spoke, the gravelly voice pulling Thor's attention to the giant. Thor replied with a grunt of annoyance, stepping forward only to retrieve Mjolnir. It was unwise to approach a giant without them noticing you first, and Thor had doubted his sudden retrieval of Mjolnir would make a good impression on Helblindi, although the time for impressions was over when Thor had smashed him with the iron hammer in the first place.

"I spoke rash words. I had not expected such a violent response." Helblindi continued as he began to pull himself up with Thor watching the giant carefully lest he decide to attack. When Helblindi made no move other than standing to his full and immense height, before stepping back to put some distance between him and the god, Thor let himself relax slightly.

"I wish no quarrel. Your surprise… visit, alarmed some of my scouts. Of course, they could only see you who wields Mjolnir, and your brother using his magic. We only know of Thor and Loki as children. It confuses them." Helblindi tried to explain to an ever reluctant Thor, whose expression changed from that of disbelief to one of passiveness.

A silence hung in the air while Thor seemed to contemplate and decide if Helblindi was to be given the benefit of doubt here. After a few more moments, Thor inclined his head towards Helblindi and his army.

"I hear your words, and they make sense. Tell your army to stand down and we will not be cause for alarm." Thor bargained, feeling uneasy at the sight of amassed Jotuns. The last time he'd seen anything like that was when he'd dragged Loki, Sif and the Warriors Three – against their will, he reminded himself – to this very realm, all those years ago. Helblindi obliged with a curt nod of his head, and turned to his army, calling forth some of the front line. Thor suspected they were the Jotun equivalent of generals, or captains. Helblindi uttered a few words to them in the Jotun tongue, and they quickly scampered over the ice and snow to deliver their messages to their respective forces. In a matter of minutes, they were retreating and splitting up, presumably back to their homes or their barracks. That was the norm.

Turning back to Thor, Helblindi assumed a relaxed position. His shoulders sloped easily and his hands rested at his sides, unclenched and not tense with the anticipation of a weapon, which Thor felt some of the unease dissipate at, knowing the Jotnar's fondness of forging ice spears and daggers.

Thor couldn't help but look at Helblindi. He was all ice and monotone, uncomfortable to look at and so incredibly barren. The blue of his skin was a ghastly shade when coupled with the typical hunter green 'armour' of the Jotnar, and it seemed to turn even darker upon reaching Helblindi's flaming eyes that were mere slits. Snake eyes. The Jotnar were widely considered as.. _ugly_. Thor could definitely see why.

"Done staring?" Helblindi's lips quirked in amusement at Thor's sudden start, the god slipped on an icy patch, hidden under the snow, and scrambled to right himself. Scowling, Thor looked to Helblindi once again.

"You look nothing like my brother." Thor stated, his tone was harsh enough to get the point across. Helblindi simply shrugged in response.

"He does look a _bit_ too pale, doesn't he?" the Jotun snorted, a low, rumbling chuckle following soon after. Thor sighed in exasperation.

"Same sense of humour, I see." Thor turned to glance over his shoulder, wondering how Loki was faring currently.

**ooOOOoo**

"We getting there?" Bruce was currently sitting in front of Loki, shivering uncontrollably and almost literally freezing his butt off, but Loki seemed to have found some kind of way of regaining his hearing, and that was enough to keep Bruce focused on the trickster.

"I heard that!" Loki exclaimed, eyes snapping up to meet Bruce's own, green orbs flickering as Loki flitted between concentrating on taking his Jotun magic and merging it fully with his Aesir seiðr.

The binding was, in some ways, painful, but Loki could feel his senses building up, and up, and he was sure they were becoming even more refined than before. Not a bad deal. Unfortunately, this binding of magic was costing him – all of them – precious time. They could not afford to stay out here any longer, not while Clint, Tony and Natasha were in real danger with their weaker, human resilience.

"That's good, Loki, now concentrate. We need to get you up and running, and we need to get the others somewhere warm and dry." Bruce said to Loki, who nodded and resumed the binding. Bruce stood and moved back to allow Loki to do his work, and it wasn't long before Loki was stood, stock still and honed in on his core. A faint blue glow slowly began to show underneath Loki's breastplate, spreading the length of his chest. At first, it seemed to do nothing but ebb and flow irregularly, in short, jarring movements that were reminiscent of a typical series of newly put-together mechanics, like a robot. The pieces didn't quite fit yet, but they could be worn down into shape, or melded, or even snapped up and replaced. Bruce had a feeling this wasn't entirely unlike what Loki was currently doing, only it was with.. well, magic. Or rather, the essence of it.

Slowly, the ebb and flow worked out its irregularities and began to move smoothly, spreading in a web of icy blue that illuminated Loki's pale features and cast out a blue light across the surrounding area, including the people in it.

Steve looked on in boyish wonder as he always did whenever Loki used his magic to such an extent. It was raw and alien, but something about it just enthralled the soldier. He didn't think, only saw.

As for the others, it was safe to say they were looking interested at the least. Natasha had perked up from her place next to Clint in a swathe of red and green – the cloaks – and watched, perplexed as she always was with Loki, but interested nonetheless. Clint looked a little less impressed and more wary, which was normal for him. He would never trust the guy. Although, in fairness Loki had… tried, to explain his reasonings behind that mind-control incident, but then he simply uttered an apology and stalked out of the room, leaving Clint in limbo. It was a tense relationship, but at least they weren't trying to murder each other anymore, Bruce supposed.

Tony was another matter. He was staring, unabashedly, wide-eyed and mouth open, ready to fire questions at Loki as soon as he was finished, most likely. Magic was energy, and magic was self-sustaining. Tony would really do a hell of a lot of get his hands on some kind of magic-energy hybrid for the suits. And everything else. But he'd say it was for the suits first as he always does. Tony was an inventor, an engineer and a scientist. It was like a boyhood dream of finding a self-sustaining source of energy that wasn't the tesseract, because apparently, taking space-junk from gods wasn't deemed acceptable.

The blue light seemed to shift once again, the network of veins spread further and highlighted the visible streams in his forearms and neck, creeping up to his jaw and disappearing. Light flooded from his fingertips, and a concentration in the centre of his palms shot out even more light. Everywhere was just icy blue and white and it began to move once again, ebbing and flowing, ebbing and flowing, but the irregularity came back.

Something was going wrong.

Bruce felt on edge.

Loki was losing control.

"Loki. Stop. You've done enough." Bruce tried the first thing that came to his mind, and then deemed it ridiculously ineffective against gods trapped in some kind of magic-trance, and made a mental note of it. Bruce made a strange noise that was caught somewhere between a panicked yell and a groan of despair as Loki was no longer visible under the intense light that the scientist now had to shield his eyes from.

"Loki!" Bruce could feel the force of his magic. Oh, it was powerful. So powerful.

"THOR!" Bruce vaguely heard Tony shouting out for their missing cog, and muffled footsteps as he began to search for him.

"Pikachu! Where are you?" soon followed, and Bruce would've sighed in exasperation, put his head in his hands and regarded his friend with an incredulous look if this had been at any other time when Loki wasn't currently a giant ball of pulsating energy that was beginning to feel like a potential time bomb.

Steve was up and running after Tony, deciding he'd be more help there than here.

Bruce was left clueless, Clint's surprised yells and Natasha's panicked suggestions barely reaching his ears. He needed to stop Loki. Right. How? He'd tried the distraction technique, that didn't work. Although, that was purely vocal, and Loki's hearing was not- ah. Right. Quickly, Bruce went through the other remaining senses in his mind and was left with only one suitable one – touch. It was either try and get a hold on Loki through all the incredibly-dangerous-to-humans looking blue light, risk hulking out (which would be a lot more time gone down the drain), or he could possibly throw.. a rock, at Loki. And he would, if he could find one small enough that wasn't attached to a massive chunk of rock in the first place.

Looking at the light once more, Bruce began to make out Loki's outline. If there was ever any doubt that Loki's magic had spiralled out of control, it was completely eradicated now – Loki was visibly struggling with the sheer force of it, his arms were shaking, fingers trembling, knees bent as though the power was actually pushing him down.

Bruce then, without a warning, sunk his arm straight into the light.

**ooOOOoo**

"Father, it's_ cold_." Thor huddled up inside his wolf furs, sandwiched between Odin and Loki as they began to walk through Jotunheim. Odin stopped immediately, turning to Thor with a worried expression. He'd been reluctant to the idea of bringing his sons, but Frigga insisted that they be taught of Jotunheim and its inhabitants in the most natural way possible, without bias or sugar-coated truths. That is to say that they would simply judge it for themselves.

"I can send you back, Thor. Don't stay if you cannot bear the cold, it is unforgiving and will get worse." Odin spoke clearly, not letting any emotion mar his words. Thor simply shook his head and soldiered on to catch up with his older brother who had found a rock to stand on and observe his surroundings from. Odin watched him go, pride flaring up a little. Smiling slightly, he continued on after his sons, watching as Loki bounded from rock to rock, into snow and forward into a roll to break the momentum, always up and laughing in seconds after impact as Thor rushed over to him as best as he could in his furs. Loki didn't bother with any. Loki wasn't cold, he was never cold. Of course not, Odin thought to himself. And Odin knew that Loki knew why.

_"I will not lie to you, Loki. My son. Remember that. _My_ son." Odin had said as he brought the young boy down to the weapons vault. It was late one winter evening, Loki had come to Odin after Thor sent him there, saying he was too cold and thought that Loki was falling ill. Thor had left at Odin's request, and Loki, in all his youthful boldness, had simply asked, "What am I?" without fear or hesitation, only curiosity. When Odin had first brought Loki back as a babe, Frigga had been the first to say what was on their minds at the time. "If he should ask, tell him." _

_And so Odin did._

Thor didn't know. Not yet. He would soon, Odin knew, but he also knew that Loki's heritage would not make an ounce of difference in Thor's eyes. Loki was just his big brother who he played with and fought with and grew up with, and that was it.

"How long must we walk?" Thor was back at Odin's side within the next ten minutes, whining. Odin merely chuckled and rested his hand on Thor's shoulder as they walked, watching Loki in his various rock-hopping antics.

After another ten minutes, they stopped. Or rather, Loki stopped and insisted that he could hear voices. It was no sooner after he'd said so, that an icy blue light suddenly shot up into the sky, ebbing and flowing with energy and unbridled power. Odin reacted quickly, pulling Loki gently back to his side and bidding them to wait whilst he inched closer to the jagged cliff edge and peered down to the source. It was a surreal sight. This column of light, surrounded by a bespectacled, haggard looking man who was shielding his eyes, another two men were running past him and shouting something that sounded close to 'Thor', and another two – a man and a woman – shrouded underneath a rocky outcrop and huddled in material of some sort. This was certainly.. an unusual predicament. Midgardians. In Jotunheim. Odin's gaze then settled upon a figure clad in familiar blues, greys and reds, wielding… Mjolnir?

Looking behind him, he beckoned his two sons over, and they obliged.

* * *

**A.N: I am so ridiculously sorry for the incredibly long delay on this story! D: I'll try and make it up to you guys, somehow. Any suggestions? I'll take any Stark Industries approved technology that lets you write faster or something, that would be cool.**


	9. Chapter 9

"Are those your unfortunate travellers?" Odin chuckled as Thor and Loki both nodded enthusiastically.

"It seems like they're in trouble. And you did promise to help them, did you not?" Odin continued. More nodding. Chuckling, he summoned Gungnir, which appeared in a blur of gold. Whispering an enchantment over it, he handed it to Loki.

"Go to them, and simply aim Gungnir towards him. His magic will be restored to order. I will be with you shortly, there is someone I wish to see first. Are you ready?" Odin grasped onto them both, and again, they nodded, before Odin honed in on a spot down from the cliff edge they currently sat upon.

Opening his eyes to ensure they were on firm ground, he let Thor and Loki go and they immediately ran to carry out their task. And then Odin was gone once again.

Upon nearing the group, Loki heard a dull thud and a muffled yell. He stopped running and found his brother, face down in the snow.

"Thor, hurry!" Loki went to help his brother up, dusting the snow off him, clutching his hand and beginning to run again. Thor stumbled along, his little legs unable to carry him with the speed that Loki ran at. They were drawing closer and closer, the column of light now almost blinding. Loki's feet were aching, his legs felt heavy and he felt his whole body going slack, when he realised that Gungnir was beginning to pull the magic into order.

"Thor, are you with me?" Loki looked at Thor, who was suddenly leaning heavily on Loki, gasping for breath. With one quick nod, Loki let go of Thor's hand and picked up Gungnir properly, ignoring the yells of the man in the purple shirt, the one who seemed to have some strange light in his chest and the other who looked ridiculous in a t-shirt in Jotunheim.

Gungnir pulled and pushed the magic around, compacting it and redirecting it into some form of order that his older self could apparently control, although Loki did not see how. He felt the staff trying to pull from his grip, but he held on. After a few moments, it began to grow lighter, and lighter again, until Loki realised that there was no longer a blinding column of light, just his older self standing there, gasping for breath, eyes wide and mouth agape.

There was a moment where Tony, Bruce, Steve, Clint and Natasha just could not register what the hell was going on. The lights did come on eventually, but the momentary lull just left them reeling. Bruce had been pulled back by Steve and Tony as soon as they'd spotted Gungnir, and the little Loki wielding it like he knew exactly what he was doing. It was kind of alarming that kid Loki knew how to use this magic spear of death or… magic or.. whatever, Tony thought. The group were all returned to their senses when they registered the young Loki's voice.

"Are you okay?" Loki had asked his older counterpart, worry evident in his tone. He returned to holding Gungnir with one hand, although it was considerably larger than him, he wanted to hold onto Thor with his other, for reassurance more than anything, as he'd noticed Thor's frightened whimpers when Gungnir was doing its work. It wouldn't do to have his brother scared. Loki didn't like it, not one bit.

His older self seem to have a battle with words for a moment, babbling something and then accidentally merging it with another word, until it simply turned into a pile up of incomprehensible mumbles. Eventually, he just nodded.

"Does-Your father knows you are here?" Loki, finally able to speak properly, looked to his younger self clutching onto both Gungnir and Thor in a vice-like grip. The young Loki seemed to freeze up, face going blank.

"Careful, I think you're hurting Thor." the older Loki spoke again, although his voice was gentler now. Warmer. The younger Loki immediately looked to Thor at his side, and released his hold a little, concern beginning to rise at Thor's slow response.

"You did very well there, boys." a voice, familiar to Loki, suddenly drew all the attention away from the young Loki and Thor as the assembled group turned to look for the source. There were 3 figures, one of which they knew to be Thor, another was the frost giant that they'd run into before, and the third was most definitely Odin. And it was Odin who spoke.

The sight hit Loki like the furnaces of Muspelheim. Harsh, an unwanted presence. This was passing into deeper waters now. Loki hadn't seen Odin for years. He hadn't seen Asgard for years, moreover. As soon as he was sent packing back to Midgard, he was placed under SHIELD's care, and had – unfortunately – _enjoyed_ his time with the Avengers, relieved from Thanos' mind games and the pressure of being_ worthy_ to someone, even someone as low as Thanos. So he'd stayed.

The point being, it had been a long time. In Midgardian years at least. And this man who was Odin wasn't even his Odin; it was all too quick for Loki to process.

"..so as I understand it, you need the tesseract to travel home. We have it in Asgard, and will allow you use of it." Odin had apparently been speaking for a minute, and Loki had managed to pull himself together enough to tune in for the end of the speech.

"Helblindi wishes to apologize, Loki." Thor cut in after that, glancing from the Jotun to his brother with a wary gaze, as though he was not sure how well this would turn out. Loki simply nodded once in acceptance, too confused to say or do anything else. There was some more speaking from some various people, Tony included, and suddenly he heard the familiar call of 'Heimdall! Open the Bifrost!' and decided that this would be a good time to finally speak up. Or apparently shout out in alarm. Everyone regarded Loki with a confused look, and Loki shook his head, glancing to the Midgardians.

"Bifrost can make you feel a little sick. Hold onto somebody, and don't let go." Loki looked from Natasha to Clint, to Tony and Bruce and then Steve, and received a murmur of understanding in response.

"Great. Let's go." Loki turns back to Odin and says nothing more. Odin watches him for a moment, before calling Heimdall again, and soon they land in Asgard. Odin greeted Heimdall as he always did, with a nod and quick summary of events was delivered from Heimdall in return, before the group found themselves walking down the Bifrost.

Thor and Loki both slowed down as they passed a certain point, not much further than three quarters of the way down from Asgard's gates. Loki slowed down so much that he came to a stop, just staring over the side into the gaping black maw of Yggdrasil.

"Loki?" he heard Thor speak, but did not answer.

Everything he had ever known was being made a mockery of in this reality. It was past the point of.. well, it was just ridiculous. Loki didn't know how to feel, so he didn't, he simply told himself to walk on and ignore. Autopilot. It would have been okay, but this… this was too big, too much of a hurdle to just step over. It required a build up, a launch, and he couldn't trip along the way.

The sudden warmth from besides him alerted Loki to Thor's nearby presence, a gentle hand on his shoulder, tugging him away.

"Loki, come, this isn't.. good." Thor tried to move him away, but Loki remained steadfast, a small smile growing on his thin lips. They stayed like that for a while.

"Why do they linger?" Odin questioned the others, and no-one offered an answer. It wasn't that nobody wanted to - defying the King of Gods was a little hard and not on anyone's bucket list - but it was just the fact that no-one really knew the full story. They knew 'Loki fell' and Thor thought him dead, but that was it. Tony pieced together an answer, and opened his mouth to speak, despite Natasha's warning looks.

"Allfather, erm. I think.. Loki fell. Off. This rainbow bridge-"

"Bifrost." Bruce filled in.

"Thanks. Uh, yeah. Loki fell off the Bifrost. I don't know why or.. anything. According to Thor – our Thor – he just fell. Gave up on something, Thor never really told us the full story, but I gathered that Loki really hated Odin – not you, other Odin from, er, our world, and Odin basically said something really stupid, and y'know, you don't say stupid things to a boy hanging off a bridge, right? A boy with extreme daddy issues, at that." Tony went off on his pieced-together idea that was surprisingly accurate. Or maybe not so surprisingly, it was Tony Stark's answer.

Odin looked vaguely disappointed for a moment, before speaking again.

"He knows he is Jotun-born?"

"Yep. Oh yes, he _definitely_ knows." Clint whistled lowly, remembering the havoc that ensued when Loki had turned so suddenly in that cave all those hours ago. Natasha shot him one of her trademark glares, unimpressed with his crudeness. Odin simply nodded, taking it in his stride.

"How?" Odin pursued, feeling that this might be a problem. Everyone shrugged. Nobody knew anything about that particular time. And Bruce was beginning to feel like they should know. For almost seven years, Loki had operated under the Avengers protection (at first, it had to be forced, but now it was given to him simply through friendship) and had given them a whole new chunk of information about villains, how they worked and why they worked, and the best part? They didn't even need to ask. Loki changed; he evolved and became comfortable in his own skin. Fury even considered getting him a US Citizenship at one point, but Loki hadn't felt quite ready for that yet. The idea was still there. The point being that Loki was no longer an enemy, or merely an acquaintance. He'd worked hard, and he'd earned himself the friendship of the Avengers (most of them, Clint wasn't quite there yet) and a place in S.H.I.E.L.D. But they all knew so little about him.

It was kind of maddening.

"Loki, what are you doing?" Thor was visibly stressing now, his brow furrowed and eyes flickering with something. A memory.

"Just thinking, Thor," Loki sighed wistfully, looking up to Thor with clear green eyes and an unreadable expression, "Did I ever tell you, it's a long way down to nothing at all?" he let a blank smile stretch his lips before turning and beginning to walk down the Bifrost again, apologising loudly to the group. Thor followed soon after, pretending not to be disturbed by what Loki had just said, but that was entirely pointless. As soon as those words had left Loki's lips, they were ingrained in Thor's mind. And Thor knew that it would be a long time before they could go. Loki's payback? After all those years of living in Thor's shadow, he'd simply left Thor with a cryptic message that would infuriate him for ages. Thor had to laugh. A small, breathless release of bated breath that eased some of the tension Loki had dredged up from standing on that edge.

Loki always knew exactly how to wind Thor up.

Twenty more minutes passed and they were approaching the weapons vault, guards sent scurrying away on errands by Odin, who simply wanted them out of the way for convenience.

On their whirlwind tour of Asgard, the rest of the Avengers bar Thor and Loki were having a hard time getting the sheer scale of this golden city into their heads, and when Thor promised them a proper tour of Asgard when they returned, they eagerly accepted.

Once Odin took them to the room that held the tesseract, Loki was the first to step up. He inspected the relic, gingerly picking it up and testing his magic on it. It proved malleable, so he called Tony and Bruce to relay the properties and various theories on how exactly they'd managed to travel through this cube.

"Think of.. a… a foam, sponge thing. It's full of holes, right? Imagine that as the fabric of space and time. To travel through, you just have to take your magic through one of the holes. Simple, right?" Tony grinned, clapping Loki on the shoulder and going to rejoin the others. Bruce was a little more patient, but he knew Loki was clever enough to work it out.

"You think you can do it?" the scientist asked, and Loki nodded his affirmative. He stepped down into the centre of the room and began to work his magic through the cube.

"You will need to stand around me, not too close." Loki said to the others, eyes shut in concentration. They followed his orders and formed a loose ring around the trickster, saying their goodbyes to Odin and the younger Loki and Thor.

At that moment, a bright blue light filled the entire room, sweeping out a vortex that took the Avengers with it in a maelstrom of blue, black, stars and flashes of colour, and then there was nothing.

**ooOOOoo**

The landing was as rough as ever. 7 people landing on the bridge of the Helicarrier out of thin air probably wasn't an ordinary occurrence, despite the nature of problems S.H.I.E.L.D dealt with.

This time, they'd managed to land very close, if not squarely on top of each other in a heap of red and green and blue. Thor was stuck underneath Loki who was squashed between Bruce and Tony, while Steve managed to land next to them with Clint directly on top of him. Natasha was somewhere in the middle of all this, only identified by several death-threats to whoever was sitting on her.

"Hope you guys enjoyed your vacation." Nick Fury – a seriously unamused Nick Fury – stood at the main deck of the bridge, having observed his favourite team appearing out of thin air and landing in an undignified heap.

"And why the_ hell_ did you bring back a pair of kids? Who also happen to look like.. _Thor_ and… _Loki_?"


	10. Chapter 10

Silence. Awkward, heavy silence. It was becoming far too much of an old friend as opposed to a stranger that happened upon the Avengers' door once in a while. Fortunately, silence was easy to break in the case of Tony Stark.

"No," the man in question jerked his head up suddenly, upsetting the pile of bodies around him, "Oh, no no noooo, _nope_. Not happening. No way."

Of course, words couldn't erase the two figures of red and green that belonged to Thor and Loki's younger selves. There they stood, on the bridge, clear as day and clearly alarmed. Loki had a dagger unsheathed and aimed, the blade glinting in the harsh lighting of the Helicarrier. A nine-year old with a sword shouldn't be so goddamn scary, but Tony felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as a familiar icy chill swept down his spine. This situation could get very nasty, very quickly.

The older Loki untangled himself from the pile and fixed his younger counterpart with a blank gaze, "Put that down."

The younger Loki did not move, his blade-wielding hand remained firm and steady as the ground he stood upon, eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. His brother seemed to shrink into himself as he kept behind Loki, blue eyes wide and frightened as he peered out through strands of dirty blonde hair.

The raven-haired boy regarded everyone with a scrutinizing gaze, mentally judging the threat levels and mapping out ways to escape. His brain whirred and sorted through the information his eyes and ears were taking in. Slowly, everything began to slip into place. His sword-holding hand loosened its iron grip and moved to resheath the sword, green eyes never once leaving the Avengers, who had begun to untangle themselves at this point.

"What in Hel just happened!?" the older Loki was wasting no time, and the sudden flare of anger was a nasty shock for his younger self, who immediately retaliated with a string of foreign words.

"_Fyrirgef m-mik!_ _Ek skil eigi!" _the boy's own anger seemed to flare in accordance with his older self, leaving the Avengers in a sort of limbo where no-one could say anything or even do anything to diffuse the situation, which in turn, aggravated them greatly.

Loki realized his mistake almost immediately after that string of Old Norse, and put one hand forward in an attempt to tell the boy to calm down, which, to his credit, he did.

"_Allt er gott. _You think you can speak English now?" Loki asked, dropping his hand and waiting for the boy's response.

"Thor.. he dropped something and he tried to get it and I-I… I went to pull him back, then Father shouted and then there was just blackness, everywhere, and I don't know-" the young Loki blurted out an explanation and cut himself off, aware of Thor trembling to his side, and suddenly he felt bad for putting the blame upon his brother's head.

"It's not Thor's fault." the boy added, frowning up at his older self.

"Can't we just.. send them back?" Clint spoke up, although the bewildered expression on his face implied that he was simply grabbing at straws here.

"What are we, the Asgardian Mail Service?" Tony retorted sharply, "They should stamp them and we can just send them back, y'know. _Happens all the goddamn time_." He was tired and in dire need of caffeine or his bed which was currently… well, he didn't even know where they were. Great. And the last thing any of them needed was extra hassle, and they'd managed to bring back _the_ biggest hassle-package imaginable. Thor and Loki, as kids. What the _hell_ were they supposed to do about that?

After a few moments, Natasha asked if the Tesseract could be used from here, and only got a half-hearted shrug from Tony and Bruce shook his head. They didn't know.

Tesseract research was turning out to be incredibly long-winded and for the most part, completely pointless, but the minute eureka moments _did_ happen, and they were incredible discoveries, neither man would deny that. Ultimately, those eureka moments were what kept them going (not to mention Tony's vast R&D labs that were now home to both raving scientists).

"We cannot hope to keep them here until their father finds a way to open the Tesseract portal." Thor said gravely, face completely devoid of emotion. He found the whole situation incredibly unnerving, and after Loki's recent bout of seiðr trouble which simply turned out to be a "_false alarm_" as Loki had put it, he wasn't sure of where this could go. Thor received a few nods and murmurs of agreement in response from everyone bar Loki, who was in a world of his own. Thor couldn't help the somewhat delirious laughter that bubbled up at that statement. Loki was _always _in a world of his own.

"I don't see what's so damn funny about this, Thor. Care to enlighten us?" Fury finally spoke up after being quiet for a record-breaking ten minutes. At least, it was a record in the presence of the Avengers, who always seemed to need reprimanding or debriefing. It was a comfortable little niche that they had fallen into. The Avengers assemble, Fury gives them the brief, Coulson gives them their locations and final words of advice and then they're on their way, with Loki tagging along. It was kind of.. easy, Fury supposed. No hassle. Until now, of course. Then again, seven years without a hitch? Something was bound to go wrong_._

And of course, today was the day that he'd decided to give Coulson some time off.

Something was bound to go _catastrophically_ wrong.

Thor looked to the Director, and his laughing subsided into silence. The kind of silence that followed in someone's train of thought. Thor knew it was completely the wrong time to start thinking, but his brain was one step ahead of him – albeit in a state of delirium after today - and so too far gone for him to stop. Inevitably, he was plunged into a deep well of babbling thoughts and long-hoarded memories; the vestiges of a once-perfect life.

For seven years, Loki had refused to return to Asgard. For seven years, Thor had tried and failed to persuade Loki that Asgard was his home. For seven years, Thor felt like he'd lost his brother.

And the irony was that it was these _Avengers_ – the group that formed to destroy him – who saved him.

_Why _did Loki let them help? Thor was always there, had always been there, yet Loki saw past his outstretched hand and to Thor's friends instead. What did they have that Thor could not give Loki? He was a god! He was his brother! These mortals were mere strangers, and yet..

It angered Thor, admittedly in a stupid, incredibly childish way. Loki was a greater friend (though he used the term loosely) and ally to the people of Midgard than he ever was to Asgard.

Perhaps, then, this would be the last time Thor would offer his hand to Loki again-

_Enough! _Thor told himself, forcing his concentration back to the task at hand.

"Loki, do you have nothing to say?" Thor asked, meaning it to sound passive, but his thoughts inflicted a nasty bite to his tone that he failed to hide. Loki looked to him, not missing the sudden infliction on Thor's words. A smirk pulled at Loki's lips which unnerved his brother who'd been expecting a nasty retaliation at _least_.

Loki, however, said nothing to Thor. There were more important things to focus on than why his brother had suddenly snapped at him, even if it was out of character for Thor. Instead, Loki turned to Tony, a question on his mind.

"Would sustaining a 'portal' through magic possibly work?"

Tony considered this for a while, looking to Bruce for help. Eventually, he just shrugged. They needed to get Thor and Loki's kid-selves back, and time-travel had, quite literally, only just been doable as a strange property of the Tesseract, even if it was mostly accidental and a result of him and Bruce's coffee-fuelled prodding and poking in an attempt to figure out something about this curious little cube.

"What have we got to lose, Reindeer Games? Try it." Tony gestured towards Banner's lab, where the Tesseract was. At least, Tony hoped it was still there, it hadn't come with them when they'd originally landed in Asgard.

"Barton. Romanoff. You'd better go thaw yourselves and report in. You have a hell of a lot of explaining to do." Fury turned to the S.H.I.E.L.D agents as Loki ushered his and Thor's younger selves down the corridor towards the lab, figuring that using his magic to hold the portal could be worth a try. It was weird enough being in the same place as his younger self, and if this didn't work, Loki had a niggling feeling that Fury would jump at the chance to make the Avengers' lives hell for a week by sentencing them to babysitting duty. And that was something Loki wanted to avoid.

"Sir." Natasha nodded once in recognition of the order and left, with Clint following close behind, kicking up a fuss about missing the 'weird Asgardian-voodoo crap' that Loki was about to attempt.

"Big guy, you look like a kicked puppy right now." Tony commented on Thor's dejected expression; although he hadn't missed Thor's earlier slip either. He didn't really want to push it, lest Thor decide that he was adequate target practice for Mjolnir, so he kept his other thoughts to himself.

"I am fine, my friend. I should go and watch over proceedings, I'll ensure that my.. brother does not cause any more chaos than is necessary." Thor huffed as he turned to follow the path that Loki had gone down, his steps unusually heavy and sluggish.

"Captain, we got a problem." Tony shot a sideways glance to Steve, who shrugged tiredly.

"They're brothers. Arguments happen." the soldier responded, going to sit down at the nearby conference table. He pretty much collapsed into a chair, his body folding under the weight of exhaustion. Steve leaned forward and folded his arms on the table, resting his head on top.

"But, if I'm right, which I always am, they haven't argued today. Or yesterday. Or the day before."

"Do you follow them everywhere with JARVIS?" Steve picked his head up off the table, eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

"Of course." Tony said in a very matter-of-fact tone that warranted no room for argument, and Steve let it go with a knowing smile. Of course. Tony had to know everything about everybody, even if they were Norse gods.

"They were fine until they got to the Bifrost," Bruce joined the conversation, tapping a stray pen on the table absent-mindedly, "and your explanation to Odin."

"They were still way behind when I said all that-"

"It would make sense for gods to have amplified hearing, wouldn't it?" Bruce gave a sad smile, dropping the pen and pulling up a chair, yawning as he sat down. Today had really been a long day.

"Oh." Tony dropped his gaze to the floor, a guilty knot forming in his gut. This was going to be a difficult one to explain.

"Anyway, it's not our business. If they want to talk, they will." Steve mumbled sleepily, resting his head atop his folded arms on the table again.

"Yeah-" Tony let a nervous laugh slip, eyes darting down the corridor that the gods had disappeared down earlier, "_Talk_. More like, 'let's throw Tony out of a window because he's a complete jackass who can't keep his mouth shut'."

"Well-" Bruce raised his eyebrows and his mouth began to form the beginning of an agreement, when he felt Tony's glare boring into the side of his head, so he stopped, lips falling into an amused grin instead.

**ooOOOoo**

"What are you going to do?" Loki heard Thor's younger counterpart pipe up from behind him as he fiddled with the Tesseract, poking and prodding, trying to find the suitable hole in the fabric of space to send his and Thor's younger selves through.

"Send you home." Loki replied simply, bringing the cube up to eye level as if that would help. It didn't.

"I didn't know this would happen-" the younger Loki began an apology, feeling guilty for getting himself and his brother into this situation, but he stopped mid-sentence when the older Loki turned to face them.

"It's uncontrollable. Don't blame yourself." Loki spoke, smiling knowingly, as though it was something he'd done many times before. Not necessarily with the Tesseract, but there had been days when his magic had gone a bit hazy and landed he and Thor in another Realm, he could only assume it was similar. The younger Loki returned the smile, glad to know that the blame was no longer on his shoulders. He returned to simply watching as the older Loki began to rotate the cube once more, muttering to himself.

"What's the worst that can happen?" the boy asked, curious. He felt Thor tense besides him, and placed a comforting arm around his brother's shoulders in an attempt to reassure him.

"I'm just asking, brother. It'll be fine, we'll be home soon." Thor looked up at him with wide, blue eyes, and nodded, returning to playing with a plastic atom structure he'd found on the floor.

"If we consider the fact that I'm not sending you anywhere unless I can find the right tear in space, the worst that can happen is I'll end up going back with you, your father will accuse me of trying to kidnap my younger self and his brother and I'll be put in a prison cell and left to rot until my Avengers try to find me. _If_ they try." Loki attempted to make light of the situation, but then realized his dark humour probably wouldn't work so well on kids, so he stopped and tried to force down the grin of amusement that was tugging at his lips.

It was quiet for a moment, until the sound of laughter reached Loki's sensitive ears, and he turned to see his younger self laughing at him. Raising an eyebrow in question, he waited for the boy to stop laughing and explain what was so funny.

"That's funny. You wouldn't be put in a cell, Father would try to find out everything he can about you. He's obsessed with the future, you know, he likes to see what happens." the younger Loki grinned up at him.

"Ah." Loki managed a tight-lipped smile, and turned back to the Tesseract. "Let's hope _that_ doesn't happen then."

After a few more minutes of pointless rotating, muttering and casting strands of magic out, only to find that they simply rebounded and gave Loki a small jolt that was similar to being electrocuted every time, he slammed the cube down on the work surface and rubbed his temple, trying to suppress the sudden rise of anger that was testing Loki's reserve greatly.

"Brother?" he heard Thor's gravelly voice from the other side of the room, and turned to face him. Thor looked worried, and there was something else that Loki couldn't quite place.

"It's not accepting my magic. It's like… that time you tried to jumpstart Tony's car, and it kept failing because the battery was so low and you just shorted it out?" Loki dredged up the memory, trying to keep it a simple analogy for his sake and Thor's. Thor chuckled, and the room seemed to grow warm at the sound.

"Ah. Well, this could be problematic, brother." Thor glanced to his and Loki's younger selves, who were watching with interest and a youthful eagerness that was difficult to ignore.

"It means I can't get them back." Loki concluded, watching their reactions carefully. It was Thor who reacted first, the boy stepping forward and frowning, craning his neck to look up at Loki.

"Why can't we go home?"

"You can. You will, just.. not right now." Loki absent-mindedly knelt down as Thor dropped the plastic atom structure in his confusion. Loki picked up the blue plastic, turning it in his hands, before handing it back to Thor who took it, still watching Loki.

"You know what a battery is?"

"Bat..tuh-rie?" Thor repeated, his youthful features scrunching up in confusion. Loki sighed, reaching a hand up to his throbbing temple again. If there was a benefit to being perpetually cold, it was that your hands were miracle cures for headaches.

"It's a.. power-source. Like Yggdrasil." Loki tested just how far Thor understood that reference, knowing that he had learnt of Yggdrasil and its power from a very young age. Whether or not it was the same for these boys, he didn't know.

Thor's eager nod gave Loki a bit more confidence in explaining the subject, and so he began a small, stripped down summary of how the cube worked.

Thor watched, almost feeling like he was intruding on a moment, but he pushed that thought to one side as he felt himself smiling at the exchange. Admittedly, it was a bit strange to see Loki interacting with a younger Thor from another reality, but heart-warming nonetheless.

Loki would definitely have been a good older brother, probably better than he'd ever been. Loki understood and explained - with ease - things that Thor could never understand, no matter how hard he tried. And yet, he'd often stood there, berating Loki on his incorrect sword-wielding manoeuvres. It all seemed so trivial in comparison to the greater knowledge of how things actually worked. The kind of knowledge that Loki always sought out.

"Loki? I think we should explain to the others too." Thor jumped in before Loki went off on an explanation, knowing that they could be quite lengthy and it was difficult to stop Loki whenever he went off on a tangent. Loki contemplated Thor's words for a moment, before nodding and standing upright.

"Come on, I'll explain to you along the way." the trickster said to Thor's younger counterpart as they filed out of the room and down the corridor to the conference table.

"So the Odinforce, as you know, takes its power from Yggdrasil. This works in the same way as a battery-" Loki conjured up an image of Yggdrasil, prompting 'ooh's and 'ahh's from the young spectators, who immediately started babbling questions as to why Yggdrasil couldn't charge the Tesseract if it was a battery.

"Wait! You are impatient, aren't you?" Loki commented, and the boys hastily quietened, eager to hear more, "We cannot use Yggdrasil because there is no way to connect them. Your father has a connection with Yggdrasil, that is how he can sustain the Odinforce. A battery gives power to something- energy, rather. You understand?"

"So how are we going to power the Tesseract?" the young Loki quipped, eyebrow raised. It was an expression similar to one that the Avengers had seen Loki wear many times before now. Usually when he was being his usual, sardonic self.

"It appears that it _is_ its own battery. It's a confusing little cube." Loki answered, smirking at the confusion that was evident on present-Thor's face as he stopped in front of the conference table.

Loki swept his hand through the image of Yggdrasil and it flickered out like a broken lightbulb, much to the young Thor and Loki's disappointment. They clamoured for Loki to do it again, but the god shook his head and took a seat.

"You could probably do it if you tried." Loki said to his younger self, watching as they clambered up onto their own seats.

"Status report?" Tony interjected from the other side of the table, "Seeing as they're still here, I'm guessing it didn't work out."

"It needs to recharge, Tony." Loki stated simply. "There's not enough energy to sustain my magic, let alone a portal."

"So much for unlimited energy." Tony scoffed, sitting back and frowning in thought. There was no other way evident to him right now, and it was grating on his nerves. There had to be something.

"Well, I don't think humans were intending on using it for time-travel, Tony." Bruce stated calmly, tenting his fingers on the bridge of his nose and nibbling on his lower lip as he began to think, only disrupted by an exclamation from the other side of the table that jolted Steve awake.

"Ha!" the young Loki turned to face his older self, a wobbly image of Yggddrasil formed in wisps of gold and green, looking a lot more ethereal than Loki's had done.

"Very good." Loki commented, a warm smile gracing his features.

"When you're done with your little light show, mind telling us why they're still here?" Fury had made his way up the bridge from his own office, heavy boots making dull thuds with each footstep, Clint and Natasha trailing behind wearing their usual, S.H.I.E.L.D standard blank expressions that every agent apparently had to master.

"Cube needs to recharge." Bruce spoke up before either Loki or Tony could get a word in, knowing that both of them were prone to long-winded scientific explanations.

"Well, ain't that sweet? You're all off duty until that goddamn cube recharges. Guess what you can do in the meantime?" Fury shot a pointed glance to the young Thor and Loki, a tight-lipped smile forming when he then looked around the table to see a mixture of shocked, confused and 'I'm so tired I just don't even care what you're saying anymore' expressions on the faces of his Avengers. Content that his daily threatening-the-Avengers routine was done, he turned to Clint and Natasha.

"You're on this too." He stated, before sweeping back down the bridge and out of sight before anyone could lodge a complaint.

Tony slumped in his chair, fingers on his temple as though deep in thought.

"So. We have to babysit Thor and Loki, whilst trying to keep an eye on Mr I-Do-What-I-Want and Pointbreak over there? Challenge _not_ accepted."

* * *

**A.N: I have officially lost control of my characters. Or at least, I think I have. While I appreciate (a lot!)_ all_ of the comments on this story, I would like some constructive criticism here, namely how the characters seem to you and whether you think I'm using words that just do not make sense.. xD**

**Heh, I'm paranoid! I want to write good stories, and criticism is how I can improve. But yeah, turns out that reading through your stories gives you serious perfectionist issues when you try to write the next chapter. Oops.**

**I have an end in sight for this story, I have to let you guys know. There will be 2/3, possibly 4 more chapters after this one, and whether or not I have a sequel in mind depends how many people want there to be one! ;) **

**Anyway, as always, thank you so much to all who review, follow or favourite! :D**


	11. Chapter 11

**Warning: Minor use of swearing in this chapter.**

* * *

After wrangling the issue out with Fury for the past 20 minutes, no-one had gotten anywhere. Clint and Natasha wanted to keep them locked up under S.H.I.E.L.D's protection in the Helicarrier, Steve was not having two boys 'locked up like foreign critters', Tony didn't want them running around his tower and Loki and Thor were staying well away from them as well as each other, which made the whole thing even more awkward. At one point, Tony suggested bundling them up in Loki's condo. With Loki. Thor protested, Steve backed him up, Bruce joined in, Fury pulled out the big verbal guns and Loki began to question the mortals' sanity.

All in all, it was an experience that none of them wanted to dwell upon longer than necessary.

Fury, being the Director, simply told everyone that Thor and Loki were going to stay with them _all_ (and he'd backed up that point with a typical Fury-glare) in a S.H.I.E.L.D safehouse in upstate NY and they were all going to like it or _man the hell up and deal with it. _

Loki had then gone into a long-winded explanation as to why he and Thor should stay well away from their younger counterparts and subsequently managed to confuse Thor to the point where Fury decided it might be safer just to drop them from the case.

Bruce made a note to never watch Doctor Who with Loki again.

**ooOOOoo**

Getting Thor and Loki's younger selves into a car to get to the safehouse in the first place had been one hell of an ordeal, considering neither of them had seen a car before. However, Loki seemed to suddenly have an unlimited well of patience when it came to their younger counterparts, and managed to coax them into one of S.H.I.E.L.D's typical black, nondescript SUVs using some kind of Asgardian analogy that Tony didn't get.

Tony then decided that he didn't really care. He was hungry, and tired and cold and everything else that came with being stuck in a frozen wasteland for hours with nothing more than body heat and Loki's _ fuego fiasco el supreme_ to keep them warm.

No. Right now, Tony really wanted a large glass of Scotch, some of Pep's lasagne and then sleep. Lots of sleep.

They'd split up for the ride, seeing as there were now nine of them, and Thor and Loki were being made to at least see their younger selves to the safehouse. Tony, Thor, Loki and said younger selves crammed into one car, whilst Bruce, Steve, Clint and Natasha went in the other.

"I want to get this straight, we need to give you some kind of codenames or something because this is going to get really confusing, really fast." Tony said almost as soon as the cars rolled out of the S.H.I.E.L.D HQ gates.

"And what do you suggest?" Loki looked to Tony from the right-side window seat, an air of amusement dancing about his words. Tony just shrugged with one shoulder, brow furrowing as he began to think. Dark eyes drifted over the younger Thor and Loki as if their presence would inspire some new names for him.

"Mini Loki? That just sounds creepy. Loki 2? No?" the inventor began to throw out random names, most of which got a rumbling chuckle from Thor, and confused looks from the two boys.

"They're not robots." Loki commented dryly, a pale finger running along the seam of the leather-covered seats.

"Okay, I got it. For however long we have to, er, _babysit_, we'll call you-" Tony prodded Loki's chest with his index finger, "Luke, and Thor can be… " Tony trailed off as he looked over to Thor.

"Why don't you guys have Earth-aliases? All the cool gods do." Tony huffed, sitting back in his seat as Thor laughed again. That noise was beginning to get on Tony's nerves. Not because it was an annoying sound in itself, exhaustion just warped it to the point where it became all too cheerful for Tony to bear in his current state.

"We do, my friend." the older god responded, shifting in his seat, "many."

"For the sake of authenticity and the entertainment of seeing you pronounce names wrongly, can I suggest we take on names relevant to our culture?" Loki smiled thinly, watching Tony's expression go through several changes in a few short seconds, before smoothing out into a passive mask.

"Fine."

"Einriði," the trickster pointed to Thor, then to himself, "Luka." Loki stated with a half-hearted grin, returning to staring out of the window at the city rolling by, the daylight dimming and the passage of civilians beginning to ebb as they returned to their homes and families.

Thor's eyebrows rose in vague surprise. Loki had remembered Einriði after all. But Einriði had been _aeons_ ago. He was ancient. He was Thor at his worst, Thor at the height of youth and arrogance. He was the companion to Luka on their endless quests across each of the Nine, often stretching from months to a year, whether it was raiding the halls of Vanaheim or lurking in the furnaces and forges of Svartalfheim for little trinkets and treasures that the Dwarves would offer the beloved sons of Asgard. Mjolnir had been one of them, Thor mused as he turned the hammer in his hand. His heart lay heavier with each turn of the weapon; as if it wound a clockwork key the wrong way and only worked to slow motion, not quicken it.

It then occurred to him that the only reason Loki remembered Einriði so clearly was because Einriði really was little more than a companion. He was not protector or watcher of Loki and Luka, but neither was he a warrior or a foolhardy boy wielding a dangerous weapon such as Mjolnir. Luka made him use his brains. Made him think and plan out. Luka even went as far as teaching him how to play chess – a game that Thor still could not master for the life of him. Einriði learned the art of stealth and wit, how to think on your feet and not with your sword.

And from Einriði, Luka learnt the basic mechanisms of defence – where to strike, when to strike, how to move, what not to do – and the art of using a sword, a spear and even a bow. It had been the only time they had been allowed to share such skills on such even ground. Ground where there was no Odin to say 'that's enough, Loki' or 'seiðr is not worthy of your time, Thor' and no Frigga to chide Thor's reckless teaching methods that often ended up in broken furniture and tattered drapery.

An equal companion, Thor concluded.

"Lokes. Lukey. Luka. _Hey!_" Tony waved a hand in front of Loki's face, attempting to draw the god's attention to him and away from the cityscape that was flying past outside the window. Loki obliged eventually, swatting Tony's hand away like it was nothing more than an irritating fly.

"_What_?" Loki hissed, not pleased at being disturbed from his thoughts. Tony sat back, looking offended for a moment, but the feeling quickly passed as he glanced to Thor and reminded himself of why he was trying to get Loki's attention in the first place.

"He's been staring at you for ages and he's not responding to me and it's really creeping me the hell out, Lokes."

"Please, refrain from calling me that or I'll have no issues with depositing you out of this moving vehicle." Loki grumbled, but the usual, finely-honed edge to his voice wasn't there to back up the threat. He was too busy studying Thor, who was staring dead ahead at Loki, unmoving. Loki made various gestures to test Thor's line of sight, but the god's blue orbs were unseeing, clouded by thought.

"Well, would you look at that," Loki smiled, and his words were reinforced with the nasty bite of sarcasm, "he's _thinking_."

Loki felt lighter all of a sudden, as though the weight of the world had been removed from his shoulders. This was how it was _supposed_ to be. This divide. It was no longer a hindrance to his life, but something that gave him his freedom. Living on Midgard for almost a decade had given him time to think, and this divide was a result of that.

Simply put, he'd decided that he wanted nothing to do with Asgard or Jotunheim.

Thor knew this. Thor objected.

Of course.

Besides that, Loki couldn't help but think that he definitely hadn't been.. _right_ in the head earlier, not after apologising – repeatedly - to the oaf for something he'd deserved, losing all control after assuming his Jotun form, and then throwing another temper tantrum at Helblindi in front of everyone. _How embarrassing, _Loki frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, trying to maintain a clear thought path through what was, quite frankly, the absolute shitstorm that had been today's events.

Letting his weary head drop back against the headrest, he ignored Tony attempting to make small talk with 'Thor' and 'Loki' and allowed his thoughts to be swept away on the gust of fatigue. Seiðr exertion was terribly draining, and Loki knew he'd be feeling incredibly sorry for himself tomorrow, holed up in his 1000 thread count, pure Egyptian cotton comforter and nursing a mug of Ceylon tea.

As much as he was loath to admit it, Midgard was starting to rub off on him.

**ooOOOoo**

"How the hell do you say Thor's name again?" Tony got out first, stumbling rather unceremoniously out of the door in between attempts to pronounce Thor's given name. Loki was right. This was just entertainment for the gods. _Bastards._

"It may be easier to say 'Riði', friend." The newly renamed Riði is the next one out, wearing an amused grin at Tony's valiant attempts. Tony regarded him with an incredulous glare.

"Not much easier, Thor. Oh, I mean, _Ri-e..thi." _Tony stalked off to the front doors, though Thor and Loki could still hear the man trying to say the name correctly as he disappeared behind the collection of cars that had gathered around the main gates.

"Your name still sounds Midgardian, Loki. Luka." Riði said to Luka, who shrugged and got out, not needing to coax Thor and Loki this time for they were more than happy to remove themselves from the strange metal contraption.

"Okay, listen up, announcement imminent!" Tony marched up to the other Avengers, who all turned to see Tony looking a little flustered.

"I've just renamed Thor and Loki to make it easier, and Loki's being his usual stupid self and requested that they be 'relevant to their culture'-" Tony mimed air quotes, doing a ridiculous impression of Luka while he was at it, "-and I was an idiot and agreed, so now we have to call Thor, _Ri-eth-i_, and Loki is _Luka_."

"Of course, you would take it upon yourself to rename them, Tony." Natasha quipped, a sarcastic smile pulling at her lips. Tony returned it in quick succession.

"Luka? Isn't that some character from the Lion King or something?" Clint snorted, shooting an amused look in Luka's general direction.

"Hurtful." Luka glided past Clint as the electric gates slid open. "My being is far greater than that of an animated lion, Barton."

"Your _being_?" Clint turned to follow the trickster, his footsteps heavy and clumsy in comparison to the ones he followed.

"You thought _I _had a god complex." Tony grins, slapping Bruce heartily on the back and making the man wince as he did.

"He_ is_ a god." Bruce reminded the eccentric, who had started to walk after the small group already making their way back to the mansion. Tony only responded with a vague wave of the hand, dismissing the topic just as quickly as he'd brought it up. His footsteps fell away as chatter began to fill the void left behind.

Bruce simply shook his head, an incredulous expression finding its way onto his worn features as he stared after his hapless friend. Slowly, he forced himself to move again, his joints still aching from the cold of Jotunheim.

All of them were feeling the aftermath.

After all, you don't go realm-hopping to a place like that and leave entirely unscathed.

* * *

**A.N: I am SO sorry for the wait! A bunch of real life problems (the worst kind) decided to crop up and kick me in the ass.**

**I can just imagine Loki holed up in a ridiculous expensive comforter with equally expensive tea, it just popped into my head and I decided to whack it in here because****_ evil bad guy Loki cocooned in a comforter_****. I wish I could draw.**

**Also, sorry for the short chapter! I'm just a bad writer *rolls away into oblivion***


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